liojrajjliral  ^hetcl] 


OF 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER, 

-WITH  NOTES  OX  THE  FREE  SCHOOLS  AND  EARLY  SCHOOL-BOOKS 
OF  NEW  ENGLAND. 

By    henry   BARNARD. 

[Reprinted  with  additions  from  the  American  Journal  of  Education  for  March,  1856.] 


Foe  Sale  by  F.  C.  Brownkll,  Hartford,  Conn. 


The  following  Biographical  Sketch  of  ''  the  Father  of  Connecti- 
cut Schoolmasters,"  and  the  Patriarch  of  Elementary  Classical  Cul- 
ture in  New  England,  was  read  before  the  Connecticut  Historical 
Society  at  its  regular  monthly  meeting  on  the  first  Tuesday  of  No- 
vember, 1855.  It  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  similar  sketches  which 
the  author  proposes  to  prepare,  or  cause  to  be  prepared,  for  publica- 
tion in  the  American  Journal  of  Education,  as  a  proper  trib- 
ute to  a  much  deserving,  but  neglected  class  of  public  benefactors. 
In  this  "  doing  of  justice"  he  solicits  the  co-operation  of  every  friend 
of  education  and  of  schools  in  every  part  of  the  country,  by  con- 
tributing material  for,  or  in  furnishing  a  sketch  of  the  life,  character 
and  services  of  any  successful  teacher  or  educator  in  any  depart- 
ment of  human  culture,  in  this  respective  neighborhood. 


licigtappcal  ^krfc^ 


ap 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER, 

WITH  KOTES  OX  THE  FREE  SCHOOLS  AW  EARLY  SCHOOL-BOOKS 
OF  MW  ENGLAID. 

By    henry  ^BARNARD. 

[Reprinted  with  additions  from  the  American  Journal  of  Education  for  March,  1856.] 


For  Sale  by  F.  C.  Brownkll,  Hartford,  Conn. 


i 


The  following  Biographical  Sketch  of  "  the  Father  of  Connecti- 
cut Schoolmasters,"  and  the  Patriarch  of  Elementary  Classical  Cul- 
ture in  New  England,  was  read  before  the  Connecticut  Historical 
Society  at  its  regular  monthly  meeting  on  the  first  Tuesday  of  No- 
vember, 1855.  It  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  similar  sketches  which 
the  author  proposes  to  prepare,  or  cause  to  be  prepared,  for  publica- 
tion in  the  American  Journal  of  Education,  as  a  proper  trib- 
ute to  a  much  deserving,  but  neglected  class  of  public  benefactors. 
In  this  "  doing  of  justice  "  he  solicits  the  co-operation  of  every  friend 
of  education  and  of  schools  in  every  part  of  the  country,  by  con- 
tributing material  for,  or  in  furnishing  a  sketch  of  the  life,  chai'acter 
and  services  of  any  successful  teacher  or  educator  in  any  depart- 
ment of  human  culture,  in  this  respective  neighborhood. 


•  •     • 

••     •    ••  •• 

•  •     •  •  . 

I* •••  •• •    • 


LB   fe^-^ 

C5BSL 


The  Amekicax  Jouknal  of  Education,  commenced  by  the  undersigned  in 
May,  1865,  and  tinited,  after  much  of  the  copy  of  Number  One  was  in  type,  with  the 
College  Review  and  Eiiucational  Journal,  projected  by  the  Rev.  Absalom  Peters,  D.  D.i 
will  hereafter  be  published  by  the  undersigned  on  his  original  plan;  the  agreement 
for  the  joint  editorship  and  proprietorship  of  the  Journal  and  Review,  having  been 
dissolved  by  mutual  consent  and  for  nmtual  convenience. 

The  American  Journal  of  Education  for  1856  will  consist  of  Seven  Numbers,  of 
which  numbers  I.  and  II.  are  already  printed  under  the  title  of  the  American  Journal 
of  JEdtication  and  College  Review.  A  number  will  be  issued  on  the  1st  of  March,  May 
July,  September,  and  November  of  1856. 

The  five  numbers  to  be  issued  in  1856  will  contain,  on  an  average,  each  160  pages 
and  the  whole  will  constitute  a  volume  of  at  least  1,000  pages,  or  two  volumes,  each, 
of  at  least  500  pages. 

Each  number  will  be  embellished  with  an  engraved  portrait  of  an  eminent  teacher 
or  benefactor  of  education,  or  with  one  or  more  wood-cuts  of  buildings,  apparatus,  or 
other  preparations  for  educational  purposes. 

The  subscription  price  is  Three  Dollars  for  the  current  year,  (1856),  commencing 
with  Number  One,  and  payable  in  advance. 

It  is  the  intention  of  the  editor  to  labor  faithfully  to  make  the  American  Journal  of 
Education  the  repository  of  the  past  history  and  present  condition  of  educational  sys 
tems,  institutions,  and  Jagencies  in  every  civilized  country,  and  the  medium  of  the 
current  intelligence  and  discussion  on  these  great  subjects  between  the  friends  of 
improvement  in  everj'  part  of  our  countrj-,  whether  interested  directly  in  public  or 
private  schools,  or  in  the  higher  or  elementary  branches  of  knowledge. 

All  communications  relating  to  the  American  Journal  of  Education  may  be 
addressed, 

HENRT   BAENARD, 

Fehrnary2ith,\>y:i&.  Haitford,  Conn. 

CONTENTS.    NO-    1. 

Page. 

Editorial  Introduction '. 1 

The  American  Associatios  for  the  Advancement  op  Education. 

Journal  of  Proceedings  of  Fourth  Annual  Meeting,  held  in  Washington,  on  the  27th, 
iSth,  29th  and  30th  of  December,  1854.    By  R.  L.  Cooke,  Secretary 9 

I.  PtiiLOSOPHY  OF  Education.     By  Joseph  Henry,  LL.  D 17 

Remarlis  on  the  same,  by  Bishop  Potter,  Prof.  Bache.  Dr.  Proudflt,  and  others 32 

II.  The  Anglo-Saxon  Element  in  the  Enqush  Language.    By  John  S.  Hart,  LL.  D..    33 
Remarks  on  the  sanic,  by  Bishop  Potter,  Prof.  Dimitry,  Dr.  Proudfit,  Rev.  M.  Uamill, 

Prof.  Bache,  Dr.  Stanton,  Prof.  Henry,  and  others 60 

III.  Classical  Education.    By  David  Cole.  Trenton,  New  Jersey 67 

Remarks  on  the  same  by  A.  Greenleaf,  Bishop  Potter,  Z.  Richards,  Dr.  Proudfit 83 

IT.  Description  OF  the  Public  High  School  House  IN  Philadelphia.  ByJohnS.  Hart,  LL.  D.    96 

Remarks  on  the  same  by  Prof.  Bache,  Dr.  Proudfit,  Mr.  Barnard,  and  others 100 

v.  Practical  Science.    An  Account  of  a  Visit  to  the  Office  of  the  Coast  Survey 103 

VI.  Discipline,  Moral  and  Mental.    By  7..  Richards,  Washington 107 

VII.  Education  among  the  Cherokee  Indians.    By  William  P.  Ross 120 

VIII.  School  Government.    By  Rev.  Samuel  Hamill,  Lawrenceville,  New  Jersey 123 

IX.  Plan  of  Central  Agency  for  the  Advancement  of  Education  in  the  UNrrED  States. 

By  Henry  Barnard,  Hartford,  Ct 184 

NO.    3. 

Portrait  of  Abbott  Lawrence — from  a  Steel  Engraving. 

I.  Editorial  Introduction 137 

II.  Unconscious  Tuition.    By  Prof.  F.  D.  Huntington,  of  Harvard  College 141 

III.  The  Democratic  Tendencies  of  Science.    By  Prof.  D.  Olmsted,  of  Yale  College 164 

rv.  Improvements  Practicable  in  American  Colleges.    By  Prof.  F.  A.  P.  Barnard 174 

V.  Popular  Education  in  Dpper  Canada.    By  George  Hodgins,  of  Toronto 186 

VI.  Benefactors  of  Education,  Literature  and  Science 202 

VII.  Abbott  Lawrence 205 

VIII.  The  Lawrence  Scientific  School,  with  an  Illustration 216 

IX.  American  Colleges;  History  of  Illinois  College 225 

X.  Richmond  Female  Institute,  vrith  Illustrations 231 

XI.  Educational  Intelligence 234 


368826 


BARNARD'S 

l^mcrifan  |ounuil  of  (giunitioiu 

The  American  Jouhsal  ok  Education  for  1856,  edited  ami  published  by  Hkmry 
Barnard,  Hartford,  Conn.,  will  consist  of  seven  Numbers,  of  which  Numbers  I.  & 
n.  are  already  issued  under  the  title  of  the  American  Journal  of  Education  and  Col- 
lege Review.  A  number  will  be  issued  on  the  1st  of  March,  May,  July,  September, 
and  November.  Each  of  the  five  numbers  to  be  issued  in  1856,  will  contain  on  an 
average  160  pages,  and  the  whole  will  constitute  two  volumes,  of  at  least  500  pages 
each.  The  two  volumes  will  be  embellished  by  portraits  on  steel  of  five  eminent 
teachers  or  benefactors  of  education,  and  with  thirty  wood  cuts,  illustrative  of  recent 
improvements  in  tlie  ventilation,  warming,  acoustics,  and  funiiture  of  buildings  de- 
signed for  lectures,  class-rooms,  and  other  edacational  purposes.     Terms,  $3.00. 

CONTENTS.    NO.  3,  FOR    MARCH. 

Pasi. 
Portrait  of  George  Peabody,  Founder  of  Peabody  Institute,  Danvers,  Mass. 

I.  EDncATiotf,— A  DEBT  DUE  FEOM   PRESENT  TO  FcTORE  Gbseeatioss  ;  illustrated  in  the 

endowment  of  the  Peabody  Institute 287 

II.  Kducation  among  THE  IIebrews.    By  Rev.  Morris  Itapliall,  Ph.  D.,  New  York 243 

ni.    Progress  or  EoncATiosAL  Development  in  Europe.    By  Henry  P.  Tappan,  D.  D., 

LL.  D.,  Chancellor  of  University  of  Michigan 247 

IV.    Improvements  Practicable  in  American  Colleges.    By  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  LL.  D., 

Prof,  of  Mathematics  and  Astronomy  in  the  University  of  Mississippi 209 

Y.    Method   of  Teaching   Latdt  and  Grexk.    Bjr  Tayler  Lewis,  LL.  D.,  Prof,  of  Greek 

in  Union  College,  N.  Y 281 

YI.    Educational  Bioorapht 295 

YII.    BiOGRAPBT  OF  EzEKiEL  Cheever,  the  PatrUfch  of  New  England  School  Masters — 

with  Notes  on  the  early  Free  Schools  and  Text  Books  of  New  England 297 

VIII.  Scientific  Schools  in  Europe,  considered  in  reference  to  their  prevalence,  utility, 
scope,  and  adaptation  to  .\merica,  by  Daniel  C.  Oilman,  A.  M 815 

IX.  Plan  of  an  Agricultural  School.    By  John  A.  Porter,  M.  D..  Prof,  of  Agricul- 

tural Chemistry  in  the  Yale  Scientific  School 329 

X.  Moral  Education.    By  Rev.  Charles  Brooks,  of  Medford,  Mass 336 

XI.  Crimes  qf  CnaoREN  and  their  Prevention 345 

XII.  System  of  Public  Schools  in  Si.  Louis,  Missouri ;  with  Plans  and  Description  of 
the  Public  Uigh  School 3|g 

XIII.  Letters  to  a  Young  Teacher.  By  Gideon  F.  Thayer,  late  Principal  of  Chauncy 
Ilall  School,  Boston 857 

XIV.  Departme.vt  of  Philosopht  and  the  Arts  in  Yale  College 859 

XV.  Magnitude  of  the  Educational  Interest  of  the  United  States;  as  shown  by  Sta- 
tistical Tables  and  Summaries  of  the  Population,  Educational  Funds,  Colleges,  Acad- 
emies, Common  Schools,  Normal  Schools,  Reform  Schools,  &c.,  of  the  several  States.  .361 

XVT.    Educational  Movements  and  Statistics 385 

Russia.    1.  Universities.    2.  Special  Schools  for  Scientific  Education.    3.  Military  Schools. 

Belgium.    Industrial  Education. 

Great  Britain.  1.  Appropriations  by  Parliament  for  Education,  Science  and  Art  in 
1855-56.  2.  Distribution  of  Parliamentary  Grant  by  Department  of  Science  and  Art 
in  Board  of  Trade.    3.  Proposed  University  for  Legal  Education.    4.  Working  Men's 

College  in  London.    5.  Midland  Literary  and  Scientific  Institute  at  Birmingham 

with  Remarks  by  Ilis  Royal  Highness  Prince  Albert,  on  laying  the  Comer  Stone.  6. 
Distribution  of  Parliamentary  Grant  by  Board  of  Commissioners  of  National  Educa- 
tion in  Ireland.  7.  Inquiry  into  Educational  Endowments  in  Ireland.  8.  Salaries  of 
Professors  in  Universities  of  Scotland.  9.  Dick's  Bequest  in  behalf  of  Parochial 
School-Masters.  10.  Lord  Elgin's  Speech  at  Glasgow,  holding  up  the  Canada  System 
of  Public  Schools  to  Scotland  for  imitation. 

France.  1.  Opinions  entertained  of  American  Education.  2.  Boarding  School  for 
Girls,  at  Paris. 

Holland.    1.  Universities,— Leyden,  Utrecht,  and  Groningeu.    2.  Public  Schools. 

Germany.    Universities  of  Prussia,  Saxony,  and  Austria. 

American  States.  1.  Colleges  in  New  England  in  1855-6.  2.  Notices  of  deferred  Arti- 
cles.   3.  Plans  of  new  Public  School  for  Girls  in  New  Yojk. 

XVII.  Educational  Journals..    1.  German.    2.  French.    3.  English.    4.  American..  .  .413 

XVIII.  Books  and  Pamphlets  belatiko  to  Schools  and  Education 416 


VI.  EDUCATIONAL  BIOGRAPHY. 


Hail !  tolerant  teachers  of  the  race,  whose  dower 
Of  spirit-wealth  outweiglis  the  raonarchs  might, 

Blest  be  your  holy  mission  !  may  it  shower 
Blessings  like  rain,  and  bring  by  human  right 
To  all  our  hearts  and  hearths,  love,  liberty,  and  light. 

We  propose  to  devote  a  portion  of  our  columns  from  time  to  time, 
to  a  series  of  Biographical  Sketches  of  Eminent  Teachers  and  Educa- 
tors, who  in  diflferent  ages  and  countries,  and  under  widely  varying 
circumstances  of  religion  and  government,  have  labored  faithfully  and 
successfully  in  different  allotments  of  the  great  field  of  human  culture. 
We  hope  to  do  something  in  this  way  to  rescue  from  unmerited 
neglect  and  oblivion  the  names  and  services  of  many  excellent  men 
and  women,  who  have  proved  themselves  benefactors  of  their  race  by 
sheding  light  into  the  dark  recesses  of  ignorance  and  by  pre-occupy- 
ing  the  soil,  which  would  otherwise  have  been  covered  with  the 
rank  growth  of  vice  and  crime,  with  a  harvest  of  those  virtues  which 
bless,  adorn,  and  purify  society.  Such  men  have  existed  in  every 
civilized  state  in  past  times.  "  Such  men,"  remarks  Lord  Brougham, 
"men  deserving  the  glorious  title  of  teachers  of  mankind,  I  have  found 
laboring  conscientiously,  though  perhaps  obscurely,  in  their  blessed  voca- 
tion, wherever  I  have  gone.  I  have  found  them,  and  shared  their  fellow- 
ship, among  the  daring,  the  ambitious,  the  ardent,  the  indomitably  active 
French ;  I  have  found  them  among  the  persevering,  resolute,  industrious 
Swiss ;  I  have  found  them  among  the  laborious,  the  wann-hearted, 
the  enthusiastic  Germans ;  I  have  found  them  among  the  high-minded 
but  enslaved  Italians ;  and  in  our  own  country,  God  be  thanked,  their 
numbers  every  where  abound,  and  are  every  day  increasing.  Their 
calling  is  high  and  holy ;  their  fame  is  the  property  of  nations  ;  their 
renown  fill  the  earth  in  after  ages,  in  proportion  as  it  sounds  not  far 
off  in  their  own  times.  Each  one  of  these  great  teachers  of  the 
world,  possessing  his  soul  in  peace,  performs  his  appointed  course, 
awaits  in  patience  the  fulfillment  of  the  promises,  resting  from  his 
labors,  bequeathes  his  memory  to  the  generation  whom  his  works 
have  blessed,  and  sleeps  under  the  humble,  but  not  inglorious  epi- 
taph, commemorating  'one  in  whom  mankind  lost  a  friend,  and  no 
man  got  rid  of  an  enemy !' " 


2  EDUCATIONAL  BIOGRAPHY. 

We  cannot  estimate  too  highly  the  services  rendered  to  the  civili- 
zation of  New  England,  by  her  early  teachers,  and  especially  the 
teachers  of  her  Town  Grammar  Schools,  Among  these  teacliers  we 
must  include  many  of  her  best  educated  clergymen,  who,  in  towns 
where  there  was  no  endowed  Free  or  Grammar  School,  fitted  young 
men  of  piety  and  talent  for  college,  and  for  higher  usefulness  in  church 
and  state.  To  her  professional  teachers  and  clergy  it  is  due,  that 
scliools  of  even  an  elementary  gi-ade  were  established  and  maintained. 
Hut  for  them  the  fires  of  classical  learning,  brought  here  from  the 
I'ublic  Schools  and  Universities  of  England,  would  have  died  out,  the 
cinss-rooms  of  her  infant  colleges  would  have  been  deserted,  her 
parishes  would  have  ceased  to  claim  a  scholar  for  their  minister,  the 
management  of  aftairs  in  town  and  state  would  have  fallen  into 
incompetent  hands,  and  a  darkness  deeper  than  that  of  the  surround- 
ing forests  would  have  gathered  about  the  homes  of  the  people.  In 
view  of  the  barbarism  into  which  the  second  and  third  generations  of 
new  colonies  seem  destined  to  fail,  "where  schools  are-not  vigorously 
encouraged,"  we  may  exclaim^  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Mather — 

•  ••  "  'Tis  Corlet's  pains,  and  Cheever's,  we  must  own, 

That  thou  New  England,  are  not  Scythia  grown.  ' 

J^t  US  then  hasten  to  do  even  tardy  justice  to  these  master 
builders  and  workmen  of  our  popular  civilization.  In  the  language 
of  President  Quincy,  when  about  to  review  the  History  of  Harvard 
College  for  a  period  of  two  centuries — "  While  passing  down  the 
series  of  succeeding  years,  as  through  the  interior  of  some  ancient 
temple,  which  displays  on  either  hand  the  statues  of  distinguished 
friends  and  benefactors,  we  should  stay  for  a  moment  in  the  presence 
of  each,  doing  justice  to  the  humble,  illustrating  the  obscure,  placing 
in  a  true  light  the  modest,  and  noting  rapidly  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual traits  which  time  has  spared ;  to  the  end  that  ingratitude  the 
j;roverbial  sin  of  republics,  may  not  attach  to  the  republic  of  letters ; 
and  that,  whoever  feeds  the  lamp  of  science,  however  obscurely,  how- 
ever scantily,  may  know,  that  sooner  or  later,  his  name  and  virtues 
shall  be  made  conspicuous  ])y  its  light,  and  throughout  all  time 
acc(jn)pany  its  lustre." 

We  commence  our  Educational  Biography — as  we  propose  to 
designate  the  series — with  a  Sketch,  such  as  we  have  been  able  to 
draw  up  from  scanty  materials,  gleaned  from  torn  and  almost  illegible 
records  of  town,  and  church,  and  from  scattered  items  in  the  publica- 
tions, pamphlets,  and  manuscripts  of  Historical  Societies,  Antiqua- 
rians, and  Genealogists — of  Ezekiel  Cheever,  the  Father  of  Connecti- 
cut School -masters,  the  Pioneer,  and  Patriarch  of  elementary  classi- 
cal culture  in  New  England, 


\ 


VII.    BIOGRAPHY  OF  EZEKIEL  CHEEVER. 


fITH    SOTI8 


ON    THE    EARLY    FREE,    OR    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF   NEW    ENGLAND. 


EzEKiEL  Cheever,  the  son  of  a  linen  draper  of  London,  was 
born  in  that  city  on  the  25th  of  January,  1614.  ,  Of  his  education  and 
life  in  England,  we  find  no  mention ;  or  any  memorial  except  copies  of 
Latin  verses,*  composed  by  him  in  London,  between  the  years  1631 
and  1637,  and  manuscript  dissertations,  and  letters  written  in  Latin, 
now  in  the  Boston  Athgeneum.  The  pure  Latinity  of  these  per- 
formances, indicate  that  he  enjoyed  and  improved  no  ordinaiy  oppor- 
tunities of  classical  training.  Pie  came  to  this  country  in  163^7,  land- 
ing at  Boston,  but  proceeding  in  the  autumn  of  the  same,  or  the  spring 
of  the  following  year,  with  Theophilus  Eaton,  Rev.  John  Davenport,  and 
others,  to  Quinnipiac,  where  he  assisted  in  planting  the  colony  and 
church  of  New  Haven — his  name  appearing  in  the  "Plantation 
Covenant,"  signed  in  "  Mr.  Newman's  Barn,"  on  the  4th  of  June, 
1639,  among  the  pjdncipal  men  of  the  colony.  He  was  alsotSrosen 
one  of  twelve  men  out  of  "  the  whole  number  thought  fit  for  the 
foundation  work  of  a  church  to  be  gathered,"  which  "elect  twelve" 
were  charged  "to  chose  seven  out  of  their  own  number  for  the  seven 
pillars  of  the  church,"  that  the  Scripture  might  be  fulfilled  "  Wisdojn 
hath  huilded  her  house,  she  hath  hewn  out  her  seven  pillars." 

From  various  considerations  it  is  thought  that  he  held  the  oflSce  of 
deacon  in  the  first  church  of  New  Hav^n^  from  16.44  to  1650,  and  some- 
times conducted  public  worship.  In  May  1647,  among  other  "  gross  mis- 
carriages," charged  upon  one  "  Richard  Srnoolt,  servant  to  Mrs.  Turner," 
— for  the  aggregate  of  which  he  was  "severely  whipped,"  was  his  '  scof- 
fing at  the  Word  of  God,'  as  preached  by  Mr.  Cheevers."  He  was  held 
in  such  esteem  by  the  "  free  burgesses,"  as  to  be  elected  one  of  the 
"Deputies  "  from  New  Haven,  to  the  General  Court  in  October  1646. 

He  commenced  there  his  career  as  a  schoolmaster  in  1638^  which  he 
continued  till  1650,  devoting  to  tHe  work  a  scholarship  and  personal 
character  which  left  their  mark  for  ever  on  the  educational  pohcy  of 

*  "  A  Selection  from  the  Poems  of  Cheever's  Manuscripts"  appended  to  an  edition  of  Rev.  Dr. 
Mather's  Corderius  Americanus,  or  Funeral  Sermon  upon  Mr.  Ezekiel  Cheever,  published  la 
Boston,  by  Dutton  and  Wentworth,  1828. 


~\^' 


4  EZEKIEL  aiEEVER. 

New  Haven.*    His  first  engagement  was  in  the  only  school,  which 

was  opened  within  the  first  year  of  the  settlement  of  the  colony,  to 

which  the  "  pastor,  Mr.  Davenport,  together  with  the  magistrates," 

were  ordered  "  to  consider  what  yearly  allowance  is  meet  to  be  given 

to  it  out  of  the  common  stock  of  the  town."     In  1641,  a  second  and 

higher  grade  of  school  was  established,  under  Mr.  Cheever's  charge, 

to  which  the  following  order  of  the  town  meeting  refers  : 

"  For  the  better  training  of  youth  in  this  town,  that,  throngh  Grod's  blessing, 
they  may  be  fitted  for  public  service  hereafter,  in  church  or  commonwealth,  it  is 
ordered  that  a  free  school  be  set  up,  and  the  magistrates  with  the  teaching  elders 
are  entreated  to  consider  what  rules  and  orders  are  meet  to  be  observed,  and 
what  allowance  may  be  convenient  for  the  schoolmaster's  care  and  pains,  which 
shall  be  paid  out  of  the  town's  stock." 

fj^  By  Free  Schoolef  and  PVee  Grammar  School,J  as  used  in-this-estract, 


*To  the  bright  example  of  such  a  teacher,  and  especially  to  the  early,  enlightened,  and  per. 
Revering  labors  of  the  Rev.  John  Davenport,  the  first  pastor  of  the  first  Church  of  New  Ha- 
ven, and  of  Theophilus  Eaton,  the  first  Governor  of  the  Colony,  is  New  Haven  indebted  for 
the  inauguration  of  that  educational  policy  which  has  made  it  a  seat  of  learning  from  its  first 
settlement  for  the  whole  country.  The  wise  forecast  and  labors  of  these  men  contemplated, 
and  to  some  extent  realized ;  1.  Common  Town  Schools,  where  "  all  their  sons  may  learn  to 
read  and  write,  and  cast  up  accounts,  and  make  some  entrance  into  the  Latin  tongue."  ^2.  A 
Common,  or  Colony  School,  with  "  a  schoolmaster  to  teach  the  three  languages,  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew,  so  far  as  shall  be  necessary  to  prepare  them  for  the  college."  3.  A  Town 
or  County  Library.  4.  A  College  for  the  Colony,  •'  for  the  education  of  youth  in  good  litera- 
ture, to  fit  them  for  public  service  in  church  and  commonwealth."  The  whole  was  made 
morally  certain  by  the  employment  of  good  teachers  from  the  start.  After  the  retirement  of 
Mr.  Cheever  from  the  school,  the  records  of  the  Town  are  full  of  entries  showing  the  solicitude 
of  the  Governor  and  Minister  in  behalf  of  the  schools  and  the  education  of  the  children  and 
youth.  Under  date  of  Nov.  8,  1C52:  "  The  Governor  informs  the  court  that  the  cause  of  call- 
ing this  meeting  is  about  a  schoolmaster,"  that  "  he  had  written  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bower,  who 
as  a  schoolmaster  at  Plymouth,  and  desires  to  come  into  these  parts  to  live,  and  another  letter 
about  one  Rev.  Mr.  Landson,  a  scholar,  who  he  hears  will  take  that  employment  upon  him," 
— and  "  that  now  Mr.  James  was  come  to  town,  who  would  teach  the  boys  and  girls  to  read 
and  write  " — "  and  there  would  be  need  of  two  schoolmasters — for  if  a  Latin  scholmaster  come, 
it  is  found  he  will  be  discouretged,  if  many  English  scholars  come  to  him."  About  the  same 
date :  "  The  town  was  informed  that  there  is  some  motion  again  on  foot  concerning  the  set- 
ting up  of  a  College  here  at  New  Haven,  which,  if  attained  will  in  all  likelihood,  prove  very 
beneficial  to  this  place  "— "  to  which  no  man  objected  but  all  seemed  willing."  At  a  General 
Court  of  the  Colony,  held  at  Guilford,  June  28, 1652,  "  it  was  thought  [the  establishment  of  a 
college  for  New  Haven  Colony]  to  be  too  great  a  charge  for  us  of  this  jurisdiction  to  undergo 
alone.  But  if  Connecticut  do  join,  the  planters  are  generally  willing  to  beartheir  just  propor- 
tion for  creating  and  maintaining  of  acollege  there  [New  Haven]."  "At  a  town  meeting,  held 
February?,  1667  ['8],  Mr.  John  Davenport,  Senior,  came  into  the  meeting,  and  desired  to  speak 
something  concerning  the  [Grammar]  school ;  and  first  propounded  to  the  town,  whether 
they  would  send  their  children  to  the  school,  to  be  taught  for  the  fitting  them  for  the  service 
of  God,  in  church  and  commonwealth.  If  they  would,  then,  the  grant  [made  by  Mr.  D.  in 
1660,  as  Trustee  of  the  Legacy  of  Gov.  Hopkins]  formerly  made  to  this  town,  stands  good ; 
but,  if  not,  then  it  is  void :  because  it  attains  not  the  end  of  the  donor.  Therefore,  he  desired 
they  would  express  themselves."  Upon  which  several  townsmen  declared  their  purpose 
"  of  bringing  up  one  or  more  of  their  sons  to  learning,"  and  as  evidence  of  the  sincerity  of 
their  declaration,  and  of  the  former  efforts  of  Gov.  Eaton  and  Mr.  Davenport,  in  favor  of 
liberal  education,  Prof.  Kingsley  in  his  Historical  Discourse,  on  the  200th  Anniversary  of 
the  First  Settlement  of  the  Town,  remarks :— "  Of  the  graduates  of  Harvard  College,  from  its 
foundation  to  year  1700  [the  founding  of  Yale  College],  as  many  as  one  in  thirty,  at  least,  were 
from  the  town  of  New  Haven  "—with  a  population,  so  late  as  the  year  1700,  of  only  five  bun. 
dred  persons.— See  Bamard't  History  of  Education  in  Connecticut,  1833. 

t  The  first  establiahment  of  the  Frek  School— or  School  for  the  gratuitoo*  instruction  of  poor 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  5 

and  in  the  early  records  both  of  towns  and  the  General  Court  in  Connec- 
ticut and  Massachusetts,  was  not  intended  the  Common  or  Public  School, 

children  can  be  traced  back  to  the  early  ages  of  the  Christian  Church.  Wherever  a  missionary 
station  was  set  up,  or  the  Bishops'  residence  or  Seat  [cathedra,  and  hence  Cathedral]  was  fixed, 
there  gradually  grew  up  a  large  ecclesiastical  establishment,  in  which  were  concentrated  the  means 
of  hospitality  for  all  the  clergy,  and  all  the  humanizing  influences  of  learning  and  religion  for  that 
diocese  or  district.  Along  sidH  of  the  Cathedral,  and  sometimes  within  the  edifice  where  divine 
worship  was  celebcated,  •'  a  song  scole,"  where  poor  boys  were  trained  to  chant,  and  the  "  lecture 
scole,"  where  clerks  were  taught  to  read  the  snored  ritual,  and  in  due  time  the  ''grammar  school" 
when  those  who  were  destined  for  the  higher  services  of  church  and  state  were  educated  according 
to  the  standard  of  the  times,  were  successively  established.  The  monasteries  were  also  originally 
seats  of  learning,  as  well  os  places  of  religious  retirement,  of  hospitality  for  the  aged  and  infirm, 
and  of  alms  for  the  poor  of  the  surrounding  country.  Their  cloister  schools  were  the  hearth-stones 
of  classical  education  in  every  country  of  Europe,  and  were  the  germs  of  the  great  Universities, 
which  were  encouraged  and  endowed  by  learned  prelates  and  beneficient  princes  for  the  support  and 
exaltation  of  the  Christian  faith  and  the  improvement  of  the  liberal  art^.  But  for  the  endowments 
and  the  ordinances  and  recommendations  of  early  synods  and  councils,  these  schools  might  have 
been  accessible  only  to  the  children  of  the  titled  and  the  wealthy.  The  council  of  Lyons  in  1215, 
decreed  "that  in  all  cathedral  churches  and  others  provided  with  adequate  revenues,  there  should 
be  established  a  school  and  a  teacher  by  the  bishop  and  chapter,  who  should  teach  the  clerks  and 
poor  scholars  gratis  in  grammar,  and  for  this  purpose  a  stipend  shall  be  assigned  him;"  and  the 
third  council  of  Lateran  still  earlier  ordained — "that  opportunity  of  learning  should  not  be  with- 
drawn from  the  poor,  who  are  without  he'p  from  patrimonial  riches,  there  shall  be  in  every  cathe- 
dral a  master  to  teach  both  clerks  and  poor  scholars  gratis."  In  the  remodelling  of  the  cathedral 
establishments,  and  the  demolition  of  the  monasteries  by  Henry  VIII..  and  his  successors,  several  "of 
the  cathedral  schools  were  provided  for,  and  Royal  Grnmmnr  Schools  founded  out  of  the  old 
endowments. — See  Barnard's  Jfational  Education  in  Europe. 

X  The  names,  by  which  the  various  educational  institutions  in  the  colonies  were  designated 
in  the  early  records  and  laws  on  the  subject,  were  adopted  with  the  institutions  themselves 
from  the  fatherland,  and  must  be  interpreted  according  to  the  usage  prevailing  there  at  the 
time.  By  a  Cframmar  School—  whether  it  was  a  continuation  of  the  old  Grammar  School  of 
the  Cathedral,  or  the  Cloister  School  of  the  Monastery,  in  some  cases  dating  back  even  beyond 
the  reign  of  ./Vlfred— or  newly  endowed  by  Royal  Authority  out  of  the  spoils  of  the  religious 
houses,  by  Henry  VIII.,  Elizabeth,  or  Edward  VI.— or  established  by  benevolent  individuals 
afterwards— was  meant  a  school  for  the  teaching  of  Greek  and  Latin,  or  in  some  cases  Latin 
only,  and  for  no  other  gratuitous  teaching.  A  few  of  the  poor  who  were  unable  to  pay  for 
their  education  were  to  be  selected — some  according  to  the  parish  in  which  they  were  born 
or  lived,  some  on  account  of  the  name  they  bore,— and  to  receive  instruction  in  the  learned 
languages,  and  under  certain  conditions  to  iSe  supported  through  the  university.  These  Public 
Grammar  schools  were  thus  the  nurseries  of  the  scholars  of  England,  and  in  them  the  poor 
and  the  rich,  to  some  extent  enjoyed  equal  advantages  of  learning,  and  through  them  the  way 
to  the  highest  honors  in  the  state,  and  the  largest  usefulness  in  the  church  was  opened  to  the 
humblest  in  the  land.— -See  Barnard's  National  Education  in  Europe. 

'•  Considerations  concerning  Free  Schools  as  settled  in  England "  by  Christopher 
Wase,  published  in  Oxford,  1678.  Carlisle's  '•  Endowed  Grammar  Schools  in  England  and 
Wales,"  2  vols,  London,  1818.  Ackermanns,-'  History  of  the  Principal  Schools  of  England," 
London,  1816.  Parliamentary  Reports  of  Commissioners  to  enquire  into  the  Endowed  Char- 
ities of  England  and  Wales  from  1826  to  1850. 

The  Free  Schools  of  England  were  originally  established  in  towns  where  there  was  no  old 
Conventual,  Cathedral,  Royal  or  Endowed  Grammar  School.  With  very  few  exceptions  these 
schools  were  founded  and  endowed  by  individuals,  for  the  teaching  of  Greek,  and  Latin,  and 
for  no  other  gratuitous  teaching.  The  gratuitous  instruction  was  sometimes  extended  to  all 
the  children  born  or  living  in  a  particular  parish,  or  of  a  particular  name.  All  not  specified 
and  provided  for  in  the  instruments  of  endowment  paid  tuition  to  the  master. 

The  total  value  of  Endowed  Charities  for  Education  in  England  and  Wales,  including  the 
Grammar  and  Free  Schools,  and  excluding  the  Universities  and  Great  Public  Schools  of  Eton, 
&c.,  according  to  a  late  report  of  the  Commissioners  for  Inquiry  into  their  condition,  is 
returned  at  JE75  000.000.  and  the  annual  income  at  jEl.209.395,  which,  by  more  judicious  and 
faithful  managements,  it  is  estimated,  can  be  raised  to  X4.000.000,  or  020.000.000  a  year.— Bar- 
nard't  National  Education  in  Europe,  P.  736. 


Q  E/EKIEL  CHEEVER. 

as  afterwards  developed,  particularly  in  Massachusetts,  supported  by  tax, 
and  free  of  all  charge  to  all  scholars  rich  and  poor ;  neither  was  it  a  Charity 
School,  exclusively  for  the  poor.  The  term  ^vas  applied  bow,  ao  well- 
as  in  the  early  Acts  of  Virginia*  and  other  states,  in  the  same  sense, 
in  which  it  was  used  in  England,  at  the  same  and  much  earlier 
dates,  to  characterize  a  Grammar  School  unrestricted  as  to  a  class 
of  children  or  scholars  specified  in  the  instruments  by  which  it  was 
founded,  and  so  supported  as  not  to  depend  on  the  fluctuating 
attendance  and  tuition  of  scholars  for  the  maintenance  of  a  master. 
In  every  instance  in  which  wts  hnw|wtraced  Uieir  history,  the  " free 

•  The  Virginia  Company  in  1619,  instructed  the  Governor  for  the  time  being  to  see  "  that 
each  Town,  Borough,  and  Hundred  procured,  by  just  means,  a  certain  number  of  their  chil- 
dren, to  be  brought  up  in  the  first  elements  of  literature :  that  the  most  towardly  of  them 
Bhould  be  fitted  for  college,  in  the  building  of  which  they  proposed  to  proceed  as  soon  as 
any  profit  arose  from  the  estate  appropriated  to  that  use  ;  and  they  earnestly  required  their 
utmost  help  and  furtherance  in  that  pious  and  important  worlt."  In  IG21,  Mr.  Copeland, 
chaplain  of  the  Royal  James,  on  her  arrival  from  the  East  Indies,  prevailed  on  the  ships 
company  to  subscribe  JEIOO  toward  "a  free  schoole,"  and  collected  other  donations  of 
money  and  books  for  the  same  purpose.  The  school  was  located  in  Charles  City,  as  being 
most  central  for  the  colony,  and  was  called  "  7'he  East  India  School."  The  company 
allotted  1000  acres  of  land,  with  five  servants  and  an  overseer,  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
master  and  usher.  The  inhabitants  made  a  contribution  of  £1500  to  build  a  house,  &c. 
Stilh's  History  of  Virginia,  pp.  195.  204.  This  was  as  liberal  a  beginning  as  any  thing  in  the 
early  history  of  New  England. 

A  second  Free  School  was  established  in  Elizabeth  City  in  1642;  although  Gov;  Berkeley, 
in  1670,  in  reply  to  the  Question  of  the  Commissioners  of  Foreign  Plantations,  "  what  course 
is  taken  about  instructing  the  people  within  your  government  in  the  Christian  religion  ;  and, 
what  provision  is  there  made  for  the  paying  of  your  ministry  1"  answered  as  follows:  — 

" The  same  course  that  is  taken  in  England  out  of  towns;  every  man, according  to  his 
ability,  instructing  his  children.  We  have  forty-eight  parishes,  and  our  ministers  are  well 
paid,  and,  by  my  consent,  should  be  better,  if  they  would  pray  oftener,  and  preach  less.  But, 
of  all  other  commodities,  so  of  this,  the  w^orst  are  sent  us,  and  we  have  had  few  we  could 
Doast  of  since  the  persecution  in  Cromwell's  tyranny  drove  pious,  worthy  men  here.  Bui, 
I  thank  God,  there  are  no  free  schools,  nor  printing,  and,  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  these 
hundred  years ;  for,  learning  has  brought  disobedience,  and  heresy,  and  sects  into  the  world, 
and  printing  has  divulged  tbem,  and  libels  againA  the  best  government.  God  keep  us  from 
both  I " 

To  the  same  question  the  Governor  of  Connecticut,  replied:  "Great  care  is  taken  for  the 
instruction  of  the  people  in  the  Christian  Religion,  by  the  ministers  catechising  of  them  and 
preaching  to  them  twice  every  Sabbath  day,  and  sometimes  on  Lecture  days,  and  also  by 
masters  of  families  instructing  and  catechising  their  children  and  servants,  being  required  so 
to  do  by  law.  There  is  in  every  town,  except  one  or  two  new  towns  a  settled  minister,  whose 
maintenance  is  raised  by  rate,  in  some  places  jClOO,  in  some  £90.  &c."  In  a  subsequent 
answer  to  similar  questions  the  Governor  states  that  one-fourth  of  the  annual  revenue  of  the 
Colony,  "  is  laid  out  in  maintaining  free  [common]  schools  for  the  education  of  our  children." 
"  And  every  parish  has  a  scholar  for  its  minister." 

The  first  provision  to  support  a  Free  School  in  the  Colony  of  New  York,  was  made  in  1732 
"  for  teaching  the  Latin  and  Greek  tongues,  and  the  practical  branches  of  the  Mathematics," 
under  the  care  of  Mr.  Alexander  Malcolm,  of  Aberdeen,  the  author  of  a  Treatise  upon  Book- 
keeping. The  bill  for  this  school,  drafted  by  Mr.  Phillipse,  the  Speaker,  and  brought  in  by 
Mr.  Delancey,  had  this  preamble  ;  "  Whereas  the  youth  of  this  Colony  are  found  by  manifold 
experience,  to  be  not  inferior  in  their  natural  geniuses,  to  the  youth  of  any  other  country  in  the 
world,  therefore  be  it  enacted,  &.c."—Stnith's  History  of  New   York,  ii.  ch.  1. 

The  first  school  Act  of  Maryland  was  passed  in  1694,  and  is  entitled  a  "  Supplicatory  Act  to 
their  sacred  Majesties  for  erecting  of  Free  Schools,"  meaning  thereby  the  endowment  of 
"  schools,  or  places  of  study  of  Latin,  Greek,  writing,  and  the  like,  consisting  of  one  master,  one 
usher,  and  one  writing  master,"  &c. 


BZEKtEL  CHEEVER.  f 

schools"  of  New  EnglandJ  were  endowed  by  grants  of  land,  by  gift 
and  bequests  of  indi\ndual9,  or  by  "allowance  out  of  the  common 
stock  of  the  town,"  were  designed  especially  for  instruction  in  Latin 

'The  earliest  mention  of  tlie  establishment  of '"  free  schools  "  by  Gov.  Winthrop,  in  hi« 
Flistory  of  New  England,  is  under  date  of  1645,  in  the  following  language:  "Divers  free 
schools  were  erected,  as  at  Roxbury,  (for  maintainance  whereof  every  inhabitant  bound  some 
house  or  land  for  a  yearly  allowance  for  ever)  and  at  Boston  (where  they  made  an  order  to 
allow  {>0  pounds  to  the  master  and  an  house,  and  30  pounds  to  an  usher,  who  should  also 
teach  to  read,  and  write,  and  cipher,  and  Indians'  children  were  to  be  taught  freely,  and  the 
charge  to  be  by  yearly  contribution,  either  by  voluntary  allowance,  or  by  rate  of  ^uch  as 
refused,  etc.,  and  this  order  was  confirmed  by  the  general  court  [blank].  Other  towns  did 
the  like,  providing  maintainance  by  several  means.''    Savage's  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  p.  215. 

We  know  by  the  original  documents  published  by  Parker  in  his  "  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the 
Orammar  School  in  the  Easterly  Part  of  Roxbury,"  thecharacter  of  the  Free  School  erected  in 
that  town.  It  was  an  endowed  Grammar  School,  in  which  "  none  ot  the  inhabitants  of  the  said 
town  of  Roxbury  that  shall  not  join  in  this  act  (an  instrument,  or  subscription  paper,  binding 
the  subscribers  and  their  estates  for  ever  to  the  extent  of  their  subscription  ''to  erect  a  free 
schoole  "  "  for  the  education  of  their  children  in  Literature  to  fit  tliem  for  publicke  service, 
bothe  in  the  Churche  and  Commonwealthe,  in  succeeding  ages,")  with  the  rest  of  the  Donors 
shall  have  any  further  benefit  thereby  than  other  strangers  shall  have  who  are  not  inhabit- 
ants." The  school  thus  established  wa*:  a  Grammar  School,  as  then  understood  in  England, 
and  was  free  only  to  the  children  of  those  lor  whom,  or  by  whom  it  was  endowed,  and  only 
to  the  extent  of  the  endowment.  This  school,  although  not  till  within  a  few  years  past  a 
Free  School,  or  part  of  the  system  of  Public  Schools,  according  to  the  modern  acceptation  of 
the  term,  has  been  a  fountain  of  higher  education  to  that  community  and  the  state. 

The  early  votes  establishing  and  providing  for  the  support  of  the  "  free  schools  "  in  Bos- 
ton, as  well  as  in  other  towns  in  Mass.,  while  they  recognize,  by  grants  of  land  and  allowance 
out  of  the  common  stock,  the  interest  and  duty  of  the  public  in  schools  and  universal  educa- 
tion, also  provide  for  the  payment  by  parents  of  a  rate  or  tuition.  Among  the  earliest  as- 
signments of  lands  in  Boston  was  a  "  garden  plott  to  Mr.  Danyell  Maude,  schoolemaster,"  in 
1637;  a  tract  of  thirty  acres  of  land  at  Muddy  Brook,  (now  part  of  Brookline),  to  Mr.  Fer- 
ment, (or  Permont,  or  Porment,)  who.  in  1635,  was  '■'  intreated  to  become  scholemaster  for 
the  teaching  and  nurturing  of  children  with  us."  In  1641,  "it  is  ordered  that  Deare  Island  be 
improved  for  the  maintenance  of  Free  Schoole  for  the  towne."  In  1654,  "  the  ten  pounds 
left  by  the  legacy  to  y«  schoole  of  Boston,  by  Miss.  Hudson,  deceased,"  is  let  to  Capt.  Olliver. 
Under  date  of  August  6,  1636,  there  is,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Town  Records  of  Boston,  a 
subscription  "  towards  the  maintenance  oi  free  schoolemaster,  Mr.  Daniel  Maude,  being  now 
chosen  thereunto."  In  the  provision  made  in  1645,  it  is  provided  that  "  Indian  children  shall 
be  taught  gratis; "  implying  that  tuition  was.  or  might  be,  exacted  from  all  others.  In  1650, 
••  it  is  also  agreed  on  that  Mr.  Woodman.sy,  ye  schoolmaster,  shall  have  fifty  pounds  p.  an. 
for  his  teaching  ye  schoUars,  and  his  p.  portion  to  be  made  up  by  rate."  In  a  vote  passed 
1682,  authorizing  the  selectmen  to  establish  one  or  more  "free  schools  to  teach  children  to  write 
and  cypher  "--the  Committee  with  the  Selectmen  allow  i:25  per  annum  for  each  school,  "and 
such  persons  as  send  their  children  to  school  (that  are  able)  shall  pay  something  to  the  master 
for  his  better  encouragement  in  his  work." 

Mr.  Felt  in  his  Annals  of  Salem,  has  given  transcriptsfrom  the  records  of  that  town,  which 
show  the  gradual  development  of  the  Free  School,  from  an  endowed  school,  devoted  princi- 
pally and  preparing  young  men  for  college,  and  free  only  to  poor  but  bright  children,  who 
gave  promise  of  becoming  good  scholars— into  a  system  of  public  schools,  for  children  of  all 
ages,  and  of  every  condition  and  prospects  in  life,  supported  entirely  by  property  tax  or 
public  funds  In  1641,  at  the  Quarterly  Court,  Col.  Endicott  moved  "a  ffree  skoole  and 
therefore  wished  a  whole  town  meeting  about  it."  In  1644  it  is  "Ordered  that  a  note  be 
published  one  the  next  lecture  day,  that  such  as  have  children  to  be  kept  at  schoole,  would 
bring  in  their  names  and  what  they  will  giue  for  one  whole  yeare  and,  also,  that  if  any  poore 
body  hath  children  or  a  childe,  to  be  put  to  schoole  and  not  able  to  pay  for  their  schooling, 
that  the  towne  will  pay  it  by  a  rale  "  In  1670,  the  selectmen  are  ordered  "to  take  care  to 
provide  a  Grammar  school  master,  and  agree  with  him  for  his  mayntenance."  He  was  to 
have  i;20  a  year  from  the  town,  and  "  half  pay  for  all  scollers  of  the  towne,  and  whole  pay 
from  strangers. "  In  1677,  "  Mr.  Daniel  Eppes  is  called  to  bee  a  grammar  schoolemaster," 
"provided  hee  may  haue  what  shall  be  annually  allowed  him,  not  be   a  town  rate,  butt  in 


r 


g  eZEKlEL  CHEEVER. 

and  Greek,  and  were  supported  in  part  by  payments  of  tuition  or 
rates  by  parents.  Tliese  schools  were  the  well-springs  of  classical 
education  in  this  country,  and  were  the  predecessors  of  the  incorpora- 
ted Academies  which  do  not  appear  under  that  name  until  a  compara- 

\  lively  recent  period. 

The  only  Free  Schools  provided  for  in  the  early  legislation  of  Con- 

\  necticut  were  town  or  county  Grammar  Schools,  to  prepare  young 
men  for  college  ;  and  instruction  in  these  schools  was  not  gratuitous 
"Beyond  the  avails  of  any  grant  of  land,  endowment,  legacy,  or  allow- 
ance from  the  common  stock,"  parents,  who  were  able,  were  assessed  a 
certain  rate  according  to  the  number  and  time  of  attendance  of  child- 
ren sent.  Thus,  under  the  order  of  the  town-meeting  of  New  Haven, 
in  1641,  above  cited,  "  twenty  pounds  a  year  was  paid  to  Ezekiel 
Cheevers,  the  present  school-master,  for  two  or  three  years,  at  first. 
But  that  not  proving  a  competent  mayntenance,  in  August,  1644,  it 
was  enlarged  to  thirty  pounds  a  yeare,  and  so  continueth ; "  and,  that 
this  allowance  was  not  all  that  the  school-master  received  is  evident 
from  the  following  entry,  under  date  of  July  8, 1643  :  "  Mr.  Cheevers 
desired  4-3-6  out  of  the  estate  of  Mr.  Trobridge,  wch  is  justly 
due  to  him  for  teaching  of  children."  ^This  mode  of  supporting 
schools  was  continued  in  Connecticut  in  respect  to  public  schools  of 
every  grade ;  a  mode  which  recognizes  at  once  the  duty  of  the  parent 
or  guardian  of  children,  and  of  the  public,  and  encourages  endow- 
ments so  far  as  not  to  weaken  the  sense  of  parental  and  public  re- 
sponsibility as  to  education.^  Under  this  system,  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  Connecticut 
solved  tlie  great  problem  of  universal  education  so  that  in   1800  a 

some  other  KUteable  way."  In  1699,  "  each  scholar  is  to  pay  12d  a  month,  and  what  tliis 
lacked  should  be  made  up  out  of  the  *'  funds  sett  apart  for  ye  Grammar  schoole."  In  I7I3, 
•'  the  committee  perceiving  that  2"  a  quarter  for  each  boy  of  the  I.atln  and  English  schools, 
in  the  body  of  the  town,  was  insufficient,  ajp-eed  that  it  should  be  2/6  in  money,  payable  at 
the  commencement  of  the  term.  Every  *  scholar  that  goes  in  the  winter,  to  find  three  feet 
of  wood,  or  to  pay  to  their  masters  4/6  in  money,  to  purchase  wood  withal.' "  In  1729,  "  Sam- 
uel Brown  grants  unto  the  Grammar  school  in  Salem,  to  be  kept  in  or  near  the  town  house 
street.  JE120  passable  money,  to  make  the  same  a  free  school,  or  towards  the  educatin,'  of 
eiirht  or  ten  poor  scholars,  yearly,  in  the  Grammar  learning  or  the  mathematics,  viz :  the 
mariner's  art ;  the  interest  thereof  to  be  improved  only  for  that  end  forever,  its  a  committee, 
chosen  by  the  town  of  Salem,  for  the  t.iking  care  of  said  school  may  direct,  with  the  advice 
of  ihe  minister  or  ministers  of  the  first  church  and  myself  or  children  or  two  of  the  chief  of 
their  posterity.  Mr  Brown  then  stated,  that  he  gave  i;60  to  the  English  school  so  that  its 
income  might  be  applied  'towards  making  the  same  a  free  school,  or  for  learning  six  poor 
scholars;'  and  a  like  sum  'to  a  woman's  school,  the  interest  thereof  to  be  yearly  improved  for 
the  learning  of  six  very  poor  children  their  letters  and  to  spell  and  read,  who  may  be  sent 
to  said  school  six  or  seven  months  in  the  year.'  He  required,  that  the  two  last  donations 
should  be  managed  by  the  same  trustees  as  llie  first."  By  slow  degrees  the  system  was  ex- 
panded so  as  to  embrace  Evening  Schools  for  children  who  cannot  attend  the  day  Schools, 
Primary  Schools  for  young  children.  Intermediate  Schools,  English  High  Schools  for  Girls, 
English  High  Schools  for  Boys,  and  a  Latin  School. 


.\ 


y 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  g 

family,  "  which  had  suffered  so  much  barbarism  as  not  tealh  by  them- 
selves or  others,  their  children  and  apprentices  so  much  learning  as 
may  enable  them  to  read  the  English  tongue,"  or  even  an  individual 
"unable  to  read  the  Holy  Word  of  God,  and  the  good  laws  of  the 
Colony,"  was  not  to  be  met  with.* 

Mr.  Cheever  removed  to  Ipswich,  in  Massachusetts,  in  November,  I , 
1650,  and  took  charge  of  the  Grammar  School,  which  was  established 
and  supported  in  the  same  manner  as  similar  schools  in  other  parts 
of  New  England.  Public  spirited  individuals  made  donations,  and  ^ss  . 
the  Town  early  set  apart  land  "  toward  the  building  and  maintaining  '""'''''^-^i^i^^ 
of  a  Grammar  Schoole  and  schoole-master,"  and  in  1652  appointed 
a  committee  "  to  disburse  and  dispose  such  sums  of  money  as  have  or 
may  be  given  "  for  these  objects,  with  power  to  enlarge  the  main- 
tainance  of  the  master,  "  by  appointing  from  yeare  to  yeare  what 
each  scholar  shall  yearly  or  quarterly  pay  or  proportionably."  Of  his 
labors  here  as  a  teacher,  we  have  been  able  to  gather  no  memorial — 
except  that  from  an  entryf  under  date  of  1661,  it  appears  that  his 
agricultural  operations  required  a  barn,  and  that  he  planted  an 
orchard  on  his  homestead — thereby  improving  the  soil  of  Ipswich  as 
well  as  the  souls  of  her  children,  by  healthy  manual  labor.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  the  early  practice  of  attaching  a  house  for  the  occu- 
pancy of  the  master,  with  a  few  acres  of  land  for  garden,  orchard, 
and  the  feeding  of  a  cow,  adopted  with  the  school  from  the  old 
world,  was  not  continued  with  the  institution  of  new  schools,  down 
to  thq  present  time.  It  would  have  given  more  of  professional  per- 
manence to  the  employment  of  teaching,  and  prevented  the  growth 
of  that  "  barbarism  of  boarding  round,"  which  is  still  the  doom  of 

*  That  the  same  system  of  Common  or  Public  Schools  prevailed  in  Massachusetts,  is  not  only  evi- 
dent from  the  early  records  of  Boston,  Ijiswich,  Roxbury,  Charlestown,  and  Salem  and  other  towns 
in  that  colony,  but  it  is  expressly  provided  for  in  the  first  formal  order  on  the  subject  of  schools, 
enacted  in  1647 — "  It  is  therefore  ordered  yt  every  towneship  in  this  jurisdiction  after  ye  Lord  hath 
increased  y™  to  y«  number  of  50  housholders  shall  then  forthwith  appoint  one  within  their  towne 
to  teach  all  such  children,  as  shall  resort  to  him  to  write  and  reade,  whose  wages  shall  be  paid  either 
by  y«  parents  or  masters  of  such  children,  or  by  y'  inhabitants  in  generall  by  way  of  supply,  as  ye 
maior  part  of  those  y'  order  ye  prudentials  of  ye  towne  shall  appoint,  provided  those  yt  send  their 
children  be  not  oppressed  by  paying  much  more  yn  they  can  have  ym  taught  for  in  other  townes." 

From  that  time  to  the  present,  the  laws  of  the  Colony  and  the  State,  have  made  it  obligatory 
on  towns  to  establish  and  sustain  schools,  but  for  near  a  century  and  half  left  them  free  as  to  the 
mode  of  paying  the  teacher  and  providing  the  incidental  expenses  of  the  school.  Even  after  it  was 
made  compulsory  on  the  town  to  keep  a  literally  free  school  for  a  certain  number  of  months  in 
each  year,  out  of  a  tax  collected  with  other  toxes  of  the  town,  the  same  school  in  a  majority  of  the 
country  districts  was  continued  as  a  subscription  or  pay  school  under  the  same  teacher,  by  the  pay- 
ment by  parents  of  a  certain  rate  for  the  number  of  scholars  sent.  The  term  of  the  free  school  was 
also  prolonged  by  the  system  of  boarding  the  teacher  round  in  the  families  of  the  district,  ond  by 
contributions  of  a  certain  quantity  of  wood  for  each  scholar. 

t  "The  barn  erected  by  Ezekiel  Cheever,  and  the  orchard  planted  by  him,  were  after  his 
removal  to  Charlestown,  bought  by  the  feofees,  [committee  and  trustees  of  the  Grammar 
School]  and  presented  for  the  use  of  the  master."— jFVW's  History  of  Ipswich. 


jQ  EZEKIEL  CHEEVER 

the  teacher  in  District  Schools  in  many  parts  of  New  England,  and 
operates  very  powerfully  to  drive  men  with  families  from  the  service 
of  the  public  schools. 

In  November,  1661,  Mr.  Cheever,  after  making  the  Free  School  at 
Ipswich  "  famous  in  all  the  country,"  and  thereby,  according  to  Dr. 
Bentley,  making  that  town  rank  in  literature  and  population  above 
other  towns  in  the  county  of  Essex,  removed  to  Charlestown,  where 
early  efforts  had  been  made  to  establish  a  Town  Free  School,  by 
granting,  in  1647,  "a  rate  of  fifteen  pounds  to  be  gathered  of  the 
town,"  and  by  the  rents  of  the  island,"  and  of  "Mystik  Wear."  Of  his 
labors  here  we  find  but  scanty  memorials.  Even  in  these  early  days 
the  schoolmaster  was  not  always  paid  his  pittance  in  due  season ;  did 
not  always  find  his  school-house  in  good  repair,  and  had  reason  to 
complain  that  other  masters  "  took  his  scholars,"  and  thereby  doubt- 
less diminished  his  income  from  rates  or  quarter  bills.  On  the  3d 
November,  1666,  Mr.  Cheever  presented  the  following  "motion"  to 
the  selectmen : 

"  First,  that  they  would  take  care  the  school  house  be  speedily  amended 
because  it  is  much  out  of  repair. 

Secondly,  that  they  would  take  caro  that  his  yearly  salary  be  paid,  the  con- 
stables being  much  behind  with  him. 

Thirdly,  putting  them  in  mind  of  their  promise  at  his  first  coming  to  town, 
viz.  that  no  other  schoolmaster  should  be  suffered,  or  set  up  in  the  town  so  as  he 
could  teach  .the  same,  yet  now  Mr.  Mansfield  is  suffered  to  teach  and  take  away 
his  scholars."* 

r  After  laboring  nine  years  at  Charlestown,  Mr.  Cheever  moved  over  to 
Boston,  Jan.  6th,  1670,  where  his  labors  were  continued  for  eight  and 

.  thirty  years — commencing  from  a  period  of  life  when  most  modern 
teachers  break  down.  The  manner  of  his  engagement  to  teach  the  "  Free 
Schoole,"  which  has  been  known  since  1790,  as  the  Latin  School,*  of 
Boston,  is  thus  recorded,  under  the  date  22.  10th  (December)  1670: 
"At  a  Meetinge  of  the  hon"^*^.  Govern''.  Richard  Bellingham,  Esq. 
Major  Generall  John  Leveret,  Edward  Tynge  E^q""  Majestrates,  Mr. 
John  Mayo,  Mr.  John  Oxenbridge,  Mr.  Thomas  Thatcher,  and  Mr. 

•  Frothingham's  History  of  Charlestown,  p.  157.  In  the  same  year  Mr.  Frothingham  gave  an 
Order  of  the  Selectmen  relative  to  the  behavior  of  children  on  the  Lord's  Day,  in  which  Mr. 
Cheever  is  introduced  :  "  We  judge  it  our  duty  to  commend  it  as  our  affectionate  desire  to 
all  our  inhabitants,  concerned  herein  to  further  us  with  their  cheerful  endeavors,  and  that 
each  person  whom  we  nominate  would  in  his  term  sit  before  the  youths  pew  on  Lords  day 
during  the  morning  and  evening  exercise.  It  being  our  joint  expectation  that  all  youths 
under  fifteen  years  of  age  unless  on  grounded  exemption  by  us,  do  constantly  sit  in  some  one 
of  those  three  pews  made  purposely  for  them.  It  is  our  desire  that  all  parents  and  governors 
will  require  their  children  and  servants  of  the  capacity  aforesaid  to  sit  and  continue  orderly 
in  those  pews  except  mr.  Cheevers  scholars,  who  are  required  to  sit  orderly  and  constantly 
in  the  pews  appointed  for  them  together.  It  is  moreover  commended  to  the  conscientious 
care  and  endeavour  of  those  that  do  sit  before  the  youths  i)ew8  Lords  days  to  observe  their 
carriage,  and  if  any  youth  shall  carry  it  rudely  and  irreverently  to  bring  them  before  one  of 
our  magistrates  with  convincing  testimony  that  due  course  may  be  taken  with  them  for  tho 
discouragement  of  them  and  any  others  of  like  profane  behavior." 


/ 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  Jj 

James  Allen  Eld",  Capt.  Thomcos  Lake,  Capt.  Jamss  Olliver,  Mr. 
John  Richards,  and  John  Joyliffe  selectmen  of  Bostone.  It  was  or- 
dered and  agreed  that  Mr.  Ezechiell  Chevers,  Mr.  Tomson  &  Mr. 
Hinksman  should  be  at  the  Govern"  house  that  day  sevennight  to 
treate  with  them  conceminge  the  free  schoole."  "  At  a  Meetinge  of 
the  same  gentlemen  "  as  above,  with  the  addition  of  Mr.  Hezekiah 
Usher,  "  it  was  agreed  and  ordered  that  Mr.  Ezechiell  Cheevers  should 
be  called  to  &  installed  in  the  free  schoole  as  head  Master  thereof, 
which  he,  being  then  present,  accepted  of:  likewise  that  Mr.  Thom- 
son should  be  invited  to  be  an  assistant  to  Mr.  Cheevers  in  his  worke 
in  the  schoole ;  wh'=''  Mr.  Tompson,  beinge  present,  desired  time  to 
consider  of,  and  to  give  his  answere ; — And  upon  the  third  day  of 
January,  gave  his  answer  to  Major  Generall  Leverett  in  the  negative, 
he  havinge  had  and  accepted  of,  a  call  to  Charlestowne."  On  the 
6th  day  of  the  next  month,  the  same  honorable  gentlemen,  excepting 
Mr.  Usher,  "  beinge  met  repaired  to  the  schoole  and  sent  for  Mr. 
Tompson  who,  when  he  came,  declared  his  removall  to  Charlestowne 
— and  resigned  up  the  possestion  of  the  schoole  and  schoole  house  to 
the  Govern"^  &ca,  who  delivered  the  key  and  possestion  of  the  schoole 
house  to  Mr.  Ezechiell  Cheevers  as  the  sole  Masf.  thereof.  And  it 
was  farther  agreed  that  the  said  Mr.  Cheevers  should  be  allowed 
sixtie  pounds  p.  an.  for  his  seruice  in  the  schoole,  out  of  the  towno 
rates,  and  rents  that  belonge  to  the  schoole — and  the  possestion,  and 
use  of  y*  schoole  house." 

♦The  foregoing  transcript  from  the  Town  Records  are  printed  from  Gould's  "Account  of 
the  FVee  Schools  in  Boston,"  first  published  in  the  "  Prize  Book,  No.  IV.,  of  the  Publick  Latin 
School,"  in  1823.  Mr.  Gould  (Benjamin  A.)  was,  for  twenty-eight  years,  (1814  to  1838),  head 
master  of  this  school ;  and,  under  his  administration,  it  rose  from  a  temporary  depression  to 
■which  it  had  been  gradually  falling  under  his  predecessor,  into  a  high  state  of  efficiency,  from 
which  it  has  never  again  declined.  He  is  still  living  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  green  old  age,  which 
seems  to  have  descended  as  an  heir-loom  from  Master  Cheever  to  his  successors.  His  Ac- 
count of  the  System  of  Public  or  Free  Schools  in  Boston  was  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
educational  literature  of  the  day,  and  helped  to  raise  public  attention  in  other  cities  of  the 
state  and  country  to  a  higher  standard  of  popular  education  than  bad  been  reached  or  regard- 
ed as  practicable  out  of  Boston. 

The  History  of  "  the  Free  Schools,"  the  public  schools  and  other  means  of  Popular 
Education  generally  in  Boston,  from  its  first  inception  in  the  entreating  of  "  Brother  Philemon 
Pormont  to  become  schoolmaster  for  the  teaching  and  nurturing  of  children  "  in  1634,  the  set- 
ting apart  of  grants  of  land,  and  allowances  from  the  common  stock,  the  protection  of  trust 
estates  and  bequests  for  school  purposes,  and  the  raising  of  additional  maintainance  by  sub> 
scription  in  1636  to  reduce  the  rate  of  tuition  in  higher,  as  well  as  elementary  instruction — 
through  all  the  stages  of  progress, — the  introduction  of  the  dame  School,  Grammar  School, 
Charity  School,  Writing  School,  the  admission  of  girls  as  well  as  l>oys,  the  Primary  School, 
the  English  High  School,  and  the  Normal  School, — the  Reformatory  and  Farm  School — the 
Library, — Social,  Incorporated,  and  Free,— the  Public  Press,  from  the  almanac  of  Poor  Richard 
to  the  Quarterly,  Monthly,  Weekly,  and  Daily  issue, — the  Debating  Class  and  Public  Lecture 
in  all  their  agencies  and  helps  of  self-education  and  social  and  literary  amusement,  as  well 
as  of  scientific  research— a  History  of  Public  Schools  and  Popular  Education  in  Boston  from 
1630  to  1855,  embracing  a  connected  view  of  all  the  institutions  and  agencies  which 
supply  the  deficiency,  and  determine  the  character  of  the  instruction,  given  in  the  Homes  and 
the  Schools  of  a  people,  would  be  one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions,  which  could  be 
made  to  the  History  of  America^-  Civiiizatio.v  and  the  Progress  of  Society. 


J  2  EZEKCEL  CHEEVER. 

The  SCHOOL  HOUSE  into  which  Mr.  Cheever  was  installed  as 
the  "  sole  Master,"  by  the  Honourable  Govenor,  and  Magistrates  of 
the  Colony,  the  Elders  of  the  Churches,  and  Selectmen  of  the  Town 
of  Boston,  and  in  which  he  continued  to  sway  "the  rod  of  empire" 
for  thirtv-five  years  over  **  govenors,  judges,  ministers,  magistrates, 
and  merchants  yet  in  their  teens,"  is  thus  represented.* 


.  The  SCHOOL  itself  under  his  long,  faithful,  and  distinguished  ser- 

Ny!  vices  became  the  principal  classical  school  not  only  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  but  according  to  Rev.  Dr.  Prince,  "of  the  British  Colonies,  if  not 
of  all  America." 

-     •  For  this  vignette  of  Mr.  Cheever's  School-house,  we  are  indebted  to  the  Rev.  Edward  E. 
Hale,  of  Worcester. 

«  Cheever's  school-house  occupied  land  on  (he  North  side  of  School  street,  nearly  opposite 
the  present  Horticultural  Hall.  It  was  large  enough  to  contain  one  hundred  and  fifty  pupils. 
At  the  present  time,  the  east  wall  of  the  Stone  Chapel  stands  on  the  site  of  the  old  building, 
which  was  removed,  after  much  controversy,  to  make  room  for  the  building  of  the  Chapel, 
in  1748.  The  outline  of  the  old  building,  and  some  general  sketch  of  its  appearance  appear 
on  an  old  map  of  Boston,  dated  1722,  of  which,  a  copy  is  now  in  possession  of  Mr.  Pulsifer, 
of  Boston.  On  this  map,  every  building  was  represented,  on  the  spot  it  occupied,  with  some 
effort  at  precision.  From  this  map  Cheever's  school-house  is  represented  in  this  sketch. 
Kmg's  Chapel  is  drawn  from  a  view  of  more  pretensions,  representing  the  whole  town,  from 
a  pomt  above  the  harbor,  in  1744.  In  that  view,  unfortunately,  Cheever's  school-house  does 
not  appear.  As  Kmg's  Chapel  was  materially  enlarged  in  1710,  it  has  been  represented  here 
as  benig,  m  Cheever's  time,  somewhat  shorter  than  in  the  authority  alluded  to.  In  an  early 
print,  described  by  Dr.  Greenwood,  a  crown  was  represented  below  its  vane,  which  has, 
therefore,  been  placed  there  in  this  sketch." 

Mr  Gould  introduces  into  his  notice  of  the  controversy  which  attended  the  removal  of 
the  old  school  house,  to  make  room  for  an  enlargement  of  the  church,  the  following  im- 
promptu  ep.gram  written  by  Joseph  Green.  Esqr.,  and  sent  to  Mr.  Lovell  in  the  School, 

Kin.l  rrr  rr.°r^''  "^^  ""'  '°^"  ^'"^  ^^^^^^  '"^ram  permission  to  the  proprietors  of 
King  8  Chapel  to  take  down  the  old  house. 

A  fig  for  your  learning :  I  tell  you  the  Town, 
To  make  the  church  larger,  must  pull  the  school  down 
Unluckily  spoken,  replied  Master  Birch- 
Then  /earning,  I  fear,  stops  the  growth  of  the  C^iurcA. 

Jown^^NZ'tTn^^  "'r'';:-  f """  "^'"^^  "'"^'  '■"^  "-  opportunity  of  consulting 
one  oT  Che^ve"'s^ul  m  °r<'     f^*"  ^""^'  "^  '''""'"'"  f"  -'^"="  »>«  ^as  transcribed 

the  Rev.  T  Cheever   of  M«rM?    .       .       '  "^  '''"  "^  ""  '^""  '"  ^^^'"^ '«  his  son,  afterward 


EZCRII^I.  CHEEVEK.  |3 

Some  light  is  thrown  on  the  internal  economy  of  the  school  under 
Mr.  Cheever's  charge,  of  the  age  at  which  pupils  were  admitted,  the 
motives  to  study  and  good  beha\ior  appealed  to,  the  punishments  in- 
flicted, as  well  as  on  the  importance  attached  to  religious  training  in 
the  family  and  the  school  at  that  day,  in  the  biographies  of  several 
of  his  pupils  who  became  eminent  in  after  life.  '^ 

The  Autobiography  of  the  Rev.  John  Barnard,  of  Marblehead, 
drawn  up  by  hiui,  in  1*766,  in  the  85th  year  of  his  age,  at  the  request 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Stiles,  of  Yale  College,  and  printed  for  the  first  time  in 
the  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society — Third  seff 
Vol.  v.,  p.  177  to  243,  contains  a  sketch  of  his  school  experience 
under  Mr.  Cheever's  tuition,  and  glimpses  of  the  family  and  college 
training  of  that  early  day.  In  the  extracts  which  follow,  the  chasms 
are  found  in  the  mutilated  manuscript,  and  the  words  printed  in 
Italics  are  inserted  from  conjecture  by  the  Publishing  Committee  of 
the  Society. 

"  I  was  bom  at  Boston,  6th  November  1681 ;  descended  from  reputable  parents,V 
viz.  John  and  Esther  Barnard,  remarkable  for  their  piety  and  benevolence,  who 
devoted  me  to  the  service  of  God,  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  from  my  very 
birth ;  and  accordingly  took  special  care  to  instruct  me  themselves  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Christian  religion,  and  kept  me  close  at  school  to  furnish  my  young 
mind  with  the  knowledge  of  letters.  By  that  time  I  had  a  little  passed  my  sixth 
year,  I  had  left  my  reading-school,  in  the  latter  part  of  which  my  mistress  made 
me  a  sort  of  usher,  appointing  me  tof  teach  some  children  that  were  older  than 
myself,  as  well  as  smaller  ones;  and  in  which  time  I  had  read  my  Bible  through 
thrice.  My  parents  thought  me  to  bo  weakly,  because  of  my  thin  habit  and  pale 
countenance,  and  therefore  sent  me  into  the  country,  where  I  spent  my  seventh 
summer,  and  by  the  change  of  air  and  diet  and  exercise  I  grew  more  fleshy  and 
hardy ;  and  that  I  might  not  lose  my  reading,  was  put  to  a  school-mistress,  and 
returned  home  in  the  fall. 

In  the  spring  1689,  of  my  eighth  year  I  was  sent  to  the  grammar-school, 

*  Of  the  author  of  this  autobiography,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Chauncey,  of  Boston,  in  a  letter  to  Dr. 
Stiles,  dated  May  6,  1768,  says  :  "  He  is  now  in  his  eighty-seventh  year.  I  esteem  him  one  of 
our  greatest  men.  He  is  equalled  by  few  in  regard  either  of  invention,  liveliness  of  imagina- 
tion, or  strength  and  clearness  in  rea.toning."  On  the  burning  of  the  Library  of  Harvard 
(College,  in  1764,  he  presented  many  book.s  from  his  own  library,  and  imported  others  from 
England  to  the  value  of  ten  pounds  sterling;  and,  In  his  will,  bequeathed  two  hundred 
pounds  to  the  same  institution.  He  died  January  24, 1770,  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 
"  Of  his  charities,"  he  remarks,  in  his  autobiography,  "  I  always  thought  the  tenth  of  my  in- 
come due  to  our  great  Melchisedeck.  My  private  ones  are  known  unto  God  ;  iut,  there  is 
one  way  of  service  I  venture  to  tell  you  of;  I  have  generally  kept  two  boys  of  poor  parents 
at  school,  and,  by  this  means,  have  been  instrumental  in  bringing  up,  from  unlikely  families, 
such  as  have  made  good  men,  and  valuable  members  of  the  Commonwealth." 

fit  appears  from  this  statement  that  this  unnamed  school-mistress  adopted  the  monitorial 
sy.stem  a  century  and  more  before  Bell,  or  Lancaster,  or  their  respective  adherents  convulsed 
(tie  educational  world  of  England  by  their  claims  to  its  authorship.  She  applied  the  princi- 
ple of  mutual  instruction  which  is  as  old  as  the  human  family,  and  which  has  been  tried 
to  some  extent,  in  all  probability,  in  the  instruction  and  discijiline  of  many  schools  in  every 
age  of  the  world.  Certain  it  is,  that  the  system,  with  much  of  the  modern  machinery  of 
monitors,  was  adopted  by  Trotzendorf,  in  Oermany.  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  by  Paulet 
in  France,  many  years  before  these  two  champions  of  an  economical  system  of  popular  edu- 
cation, by  means  of  one  head  master,  with  boys  and  girls  for  assistants,  in  a  school  of  many 
hundred  children,  ever  set  up  their  model  schools  in  Madras  or  London. 


14 


EZEKIBL  CHEEVER. 


under  the  tnition  of  the  aged,  venerable,  and  justly  famons  Mr.  Ezekiel  Cheever. 
But  after  a  few  weeks,  an  odd  accident  drove  me  from  the  eohool.  There  was 
an  older  lad  eiilcretl  the  school  the  same  week  with  me ;  we  strove  who  should 
outdo ;  and  he  beat  me  by  the  help  tif  a  brother  in  the  upper  cliiss,  who  stood 
behind  master  with  the  accidence  open  for  him  to  read  out  off;  by  which  means 
he  could  recite  his  *  •  three  and  four  times  in  a  forenoon,  and  the  same  in 
the  afternoon ;  but  I  who  had  no  such  help,  and  was  obliged  to  conmiit  all  to 
memory,  could  not  keep  pace  with  him  ;  so  that  he  would  be  always  one  lesson 
before  me.  My  ambition  could  not  beai-  to  be  outdone,  and  in  such  a  fraudulent 
manner,  and  therefore  I  left  the  school.  About  this  time  arrived  a  dissenting 
minister  from  lingland,  who  opened  a  private  school  for  reading,  writing,  and 
Latin.  My  good  father  put  me  under  his  tuition,  with  whom  I  spent  a  year  and 
a  half  The  gentleman  receiving  but  little  encouragement,  threw  up  his  school, 
and  veturned  me  to  my  father,  and  again  I  was  sent  to  my  aged  Mr.  Cheever,  who 
placed  me  in  the  lowest  class  ;  but  finding  I  soon  read  through  my  «  »  •  ^ 
in  a  few  weeks  he  advanced  me  to  the  ♦  *  •  ^  and  the  next  year  made 
me  the  head  of  it. 

In  the  time  of  my  absence  from  Mr.  Cheever,  it  pleased  God  to  take  to  him- 
self my  dear  mother,  who  was  not  only  a  very  virtuous,  but  a  very  intelligent 
woman.  She  was  exceeding  fond  of  my  learning,  and  taught  me  to  pray.  My 
good  father  also  instructed  me,  and  made  a  little  closet  for  me  to  retire  to  for  my 
morning  and  evening  devotion.  But,  alas !  how  childish  and  hypocritical  were 
all  my  pretensions  to  piety,  there  being  little  or  no  serious  thoughts  of  God  and 
^x%ligion  in  me.        *•»*»«»»««  • 

/  Though  my  master  advanced  me,  as  above,  yet  I  was  a  very  naughty  boy, 
f  much  given  to  play,  insomuch  that  he  at  length  openly  declared,  "  You  Barnard, 
I  know  you  can  do  well  enough  if  you  will ;  but  you  are  so  full  of  play  that  you 
hinder  your  classmates  from  getting  their  lessons ;  and  therefore,  if  any  of  them 
cannot  perform  their  duty,  I  shall  correct  you  for  it."  One  unlucky  day,  one 
of  iny  classmates  did  not  look  into  his  book,  and  therefore  could  not  say  his 
)  lesson,  though  I  called  upon  him  once  and  again  to  mind  his  book :  upon  which 

our  master  beat  me.  I  told  master  the  reason  why  he  could  not  say  his  ks.son 
was,  his  declaring  he  would  beat  me  if  any  of  the  class  were  wanting  in  their 
duty  ;  since  Avhich  this  boy  would  not  look  into  his  book,  though  I  called  upon 

I  hun  to  mind  his  book,  as  the  class  could  witness.     Tlie  boy  was  pleased  with  my 

being  corrected    and  persisted  in  his  neglect,  for  which  I  was  still  corrected,  and 

^  that  for  several  day.s.     I  thought,  in  justice,  I  ought  to  correct  the  boy,  and 

compel  him  to  a   better  temper;  and  therefore,  after  school  was  done,  I  went 
up  to  him,  and  told  him  I  had  been  beaten  several  times  for  his  neglect ;  and 
since  master  would  not  correct  him  I  would,  and  I  should  do  so  as  often  as  I 
was  corrected  for  i>im  ;  and  then  drubbed  him  heartily.     The  boy  never  came  to 
t    school  any  more,  ami  so  that  unhappy  affair  ended. 
"^^        Though  I  was  often  beaten  for  my  play,  and  my  little  roguish  tricks,  yet  I 
0     don't  remember  that  I  was  ever  beaten  for  my  book  more  than   once  or  twice. 
One  of  th^e  was  upon  this  occasion.     Master  put  our  class  upon  turning  ^'Esop's 
Fables  into  Latin  verse.  Some  dull  fellows  made  a  shift  to  perform  this  to  accept- 
ance ;  but  I  was  so  much  duller  at  this  exercise,  that  I  could  make  nothing  of  it; 
for  which  master  corrected  me,  and  this  he  did  two  or  three  days  going.     I  had 
honestly  tried  my  possibles  to  perform  the  task ;  but  having  no  poetical  fancy, 
nor  then  a  capacity  opened  of  expressing  the  same  idea  by  a  variation  of  phrases, 
though  I  was  perfectly  acquainted  with  prosody,  I  found  I  could  do  nothing ;  and 
therefore  plainly  told  my  master,  that  I  had  diligently  labored  all  I  could  to  per- 
form what  he  required,  and  perceiving  I  had  no  genius  for  it,  I  thought  it  was  in 
vain  to  strive  against  nature  any  longer ;  and  he  never  more  required  it  of  me. 
.  Nor  had  I  any  thing  of  a  poetical  genius  till  after  I  had  been  at  College  some 
\  time,  when  upon  reading  some  of  Mr.  Cowley's  works,  I  was  highly  pleased,  and 

I  a  new  scene  opened  before  me. 

I  remember  once,  in  making  a  piece  of  Latin,  my  master  found  fault  witli  the 
syntax  of  one  word,  which  was  not  so  used  by  me  heedlessly,  but  designedly,  and 
therefore  I  told  him  there  was  a  plain  grammar  rule  for  it.  lie  angrily  replied, 
there  was  no  such  rule.  I  took  the  grammar  and  showed  the  rule  to  him.  Then 
he  smilingly  said,  "  Thou  art  a  brave  boy  ;  I  had  forgot  it."  And  no  wonder  ; 
for  he  was  then  above  eighty  years  old. 


\ 


A 


EZEKIEL  CHBEVER.  I5 

We  continue  these  extracts  beyond  the  passages  which  relate  to 
Mr,  Barnard's  experience  in  Mr.  Cheever's  school,  because  they  throw 
light  on  college  life  at  that  time. 

"  From  the  grammar  school  I  was  admitted  into  the  college,  in  Cambridge,  in 
New  England,  in  July,  1096,  und<T  the  Presidentship  of  the  very  reverend  and 
excellent  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  (who  gave  me  for  a  thesis,  Habenti  dabitur,)  and 
the  tutorage  of  those  two  great  men,  Mr.  John  Levorett,  (afterwards  President,) 
and  Mr.  William  Brattle,  (afterwards  the  worthy  minister  of  Cambridge.)  Mr. 
Leverett  became  my  special  tutor  for  about  a  year  and  a  half,  to  whom  succeeded 
Mr.  Jabez  Fitch,  (afterwards  the  minister  of  Ipswich  with  Mr.  John  Rogers,  who, 
at  the  invitation  of  the  church  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  removed  to 
them.)  Upon  my  entering  into  college,  I  became  chamber-mate,  the  first  year, 
to  a  senior  and  a  junior  sophister;  which  might  have  been  greatly  to  myadvaQ;-^ 
tage,  had  they  been  of  a  studious  disposition,  and  made  any  considerable  progress 
in  literature.  But,  alas !  they  were  an  idle  pack,  who  knew  but  little,  and  took 
no  pains  to  increase  their  knowledge.  When  therefore,  according  to  my  dis- 
position, which  was  ambitious  to  excel,  I  apphed  myself  close  to  books,  and  began 
to  look  forward  into  the  next  year's  exei'cises,  this  unhappy  pair  greatly  discou- 
raged me,  and  beat  me  off  from  my  studies,  so  that  by  their  persuasions  I  foolishly 
threw  by  my  books,  and  soon  became  as  idle  as  they  were.  Oh  !  how  baneful  is 
it  to  be  linked  with  bad  company !  and  what  a  vile  heart  had  I  to  hearken  to  their 
wretched  persuasions  !  I  never,  after  this,  recovered  a  good  studious  disposition, 
while  I  was  at  college.  Having  a  ready,  quick  memory,  which  rendered  the 
common  exercises  of  the  college  easy  to  me,  and  being  an  active  youth,  I  was 
hurried  almost  continually  into  one  diversion  or  another,  and  gave  myself  to  no 
particular  studies,  and  therefore  made  no  great  proficiency  in  any  part  of  solid 

In  July,  1700,  I  took  my  first  degree,  Dr.  Increase  Mather  being  President; 
after  which  I  returned  to  my  honored  father's  house,  where  I  betook  myself  to 
close  studying,  and  humbling  myself  before  God  with  fasting  and  prayer,  implor- 
ing the  pardon  of  all  my  sins,  through  the  mediation  of  Christ ;  begging  the 
divine  Spirit  to  sanctify  me  throughout,  in  spirit,  soul,  and  body,  and  fit  me  for, 
and  use  me  in  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  and  direct  and  bless  all  my  studies  to 
that  end.  I  joined  to  the  North  Church  in  Boston,  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
the  two  Mathers.  Some  time  in  November,  1702,  I  was  visited  with  a  fever  and 
sore  throat,  but  through  the  mercy  of  God  to  a  poor  sinful  creature,  in  a  few  days 
I  recovered  a  good  state  of  health ;  and  from  that  time  to  this,  November,  1766, 
I  have  never  had  any  sickness  that  has  confined  me  to  my  bed. 

While  I  continued  at  my  good  father's  I  prosecuted  my  studies ;  and  looked 
something  into  the  mathematics,  though  I  gained  but  little  ;  our  advantages  there- 
for being  noways  equal  to  what  they  have,  who  now  have  tlie  great  Sir  Isaac 
Newton,  and  Dr.  Halley,  and  some  other  mathematicians,  for  their  guides.  About 
this  time  I  made  a  visit  to  the  college,  as  I  generally  did  once  or  twice  a  year, 
where  I  remember  the  conversation  turning  upon  the  mathemati<«,  one  of  the 
company,  who  was  a  considerable  proficient  in  them,  observing  my  ignorance, 
said  to  me  he  would  give  me  a  question,  which  if  I  answered  in  a  month's  close 
application,  he  should  account  me  an  apt  scholar.  He  gave  me  the  question.  I, 
who  was  ashamed  of  the  reproach  cast  upon  me,  set  myself  hard  to  work,  and  in 
a  fortnight's  time  returned  him  a  solution  of  the  question,  both  by  trigonometry 
and  geometry,  with  a  canon  by  which  to  resolve  all  questions  of  the  like  nature. 
When  I  showed  it  to  him,  he  was  surprised,  said  it  was  right,  and  owned  he 
knew  no  way  of  resolving  it  but  by  algebra,  which  I  was  an  utterly  stranger 
to.  I  also  gave  myself  to  the  study  of  the  Biblical  Hebrew,  turned  the  Lord's 
prayer,  the  creed,  and  part  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism  into  Hebrew,  (for  which 
I  had  Dr.  Cotton  Mather  for  my  corrector,)  and  entered  on  the  task  of  finding 
the  i-adix  of  every  Hebrew  word  in  the  Bible,  with  designs  to  form  a  Hebrew 
Concordance ;  but  when  I  had  proceeded  through  a  few  chapters  in  Genesis,  I  found 
the  work  was  done  to  my  hand  by  one  of  the  Buxtorfs.     So  I  laid  it  by.       *        * 

About  two  months  before  I  took' my  second  degree,  the  reverend  and  deserv- 
edly famous  Mr.  Samuel  Willard,  then  Vice-President,  called  upon  me,  (though 
I  Uved  in  Boston,)  to  give  a  common-place  in  the  college  hall ;  which  I  did,  the 


16 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER 


latter  end  of  June,  from  2.  Peter,  i.  20,  21,  endeavoring  to  prove  the  divine  inspi- 
ration and  nutliority  of  the  lioly  Scriptures.  AVhen  I  liad  concluded,  the  President 
was  80  good  as  to  any  openly  in  the  hall,  '  Bene  fecisti,  Barnarde,  et  gratiat  ago 
tibU     Under  him  I  took  my  second  degree  in  July,  1703." 

[  In  Turrell's  "  Life  and  Character  of  Rev.  Benjamin  Colman,  D.  D., 
late  pastor  of  a  church  in  Boston,  New  England,  who  deceased 
August  29,  174'7,"  and  published  in  1749,  there  is  the  following 
sketch  of  the  school  life  of  this  eminent  divine. 

"  lie  was  of  a  tender  constitution  from  his  birth,  and  very  backward  in  his  speech 
and  reading  till  he  aiTived  to  the  age  oi  five  years;  when,  at  once,  he  grew  for- 
ward in  both,  and  entered  (in  1(578)  young  and  small  into  the  Grammar  School 
under  the  tuition  of  tfie  venerable  and  learned  .Mr.  Ezekiel  Cheever.  His 
sprightly  genius  and  advances  in  learning  were  soon  (with  pleasure)  observed  by 
his  preceptor,  insomuch,  that,  in  his  first  and  second  years,  he  was  several  times 
called  upon  by  him  to  reprove  and  shame  some  dull  boys  of  upper  forms,  when 
they  grosly  failed  in  their  catechism  and  some  low  Exercises.  lie  was  fired  with 
a  laudable  ambition  of  excelling  at  his  book,  apd  a  fear  of  being  outdone.  By  his 
industry  at  home,  he  always  kept  foremost.  Or  equal  to  the  best  of  the  form  at 
school ;  and,  a  great  advantage  he  ha<l  (which,  at  that  time,  gave  him  no  little  (pain 
in  the  promptness,  diligence,  and  brightness  of  his  intimate  companion,  Prout,  who 
used  to  spend  his  hours  out  of  school,  generally,  in  studies  with  him,  the  two  or 
three  last  years  of  his  life ;  and,  their  preceptor  used,  openly,  to  compare  their 
exercises,  and,  sometimes,  declare  he  knew  not  which  were  best,  and,  bid  Coltnan 
take  heed,  for,  the  first  time  he  was  outdone,  Prout  should  have  his  place.  But, 
alas !  a  violent  fever  seized  the  lovely,  shining,  ambitious  boy,  and  suddenly  carried 
him  to  an  higher  form,  to  the  great  grief  as  well  as  hurt  of  Colman,  who  was 
now  left  without  a  rival,  and,  so  without  a  spur  to  daily  care  and  labour.  How- 
ever, he  followed  his  studies  so  well  that  he  was  qualified  foi-  an  admission  into 
Jiarvard  College  in  the  year  1 688. 

His  early  piety  was  equal  to  his  learning.  His  pious  Mother  (as  he  records  it, 
to  her  eternal  honour),  like  LemueVs,  travailed  in  pain  through  his  infancy  and 
childhood  for  the  new  birth ;  and,  to  her  instructions  and  corrections  added  her 
commands  and  admonitions  respecting  every  thing  that  was  religious  and  holy  ; 
and,  in  a  particular  manner,  about  the  duty  of  praying  to  God  in  secret,  and,  also, 
caused  him  and  her  other  children  to  retire  and  pray  together,  and  for  one  an- 
other on  the  Lord's  Days  at  noon. 

While  a  school-boy  for  a  course  of  years,  he  and  some  of  his  companions,  by 
beir  own  proposal  to  each  other,  under  the  encouragement  of  their  parents,  and, 
with  the  consent  of  their  preceptor,  used  to  spend  a  part  of  Saturdays  in  the  after- 
noon in  prayer  together  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Colman,  which  continued  until  their 
leaving  the  school  and  going  to  college :  Mather,  Baker,  Prout,  Pool,  Townsend 
were  of  this  number ;  and,  for  the  most  part,  behaved  decently  and  seriously  in 
these  early  exercises  of  piety  and  devotion. 

After  his  admission  into  college,  he  grew  in  piety  and  learning,  and  in  favor 
with  God  and  man.  He  performed  all  his  exercises  to  good  acceptance ;  many  of 
them  had  the  applauses  of  his  learned  tutor,  Mr.  John  Leverett.  He  was  much 
animated  to  the  study  of  the  liberal  sciences,  and  to  make  the  utmost  improve- 
ment in  them  from  the  shining  example  of  the  excellent  Pemberion,  who  was  a 
year  before  him  in  standing.  To  be  next  to  him  seems  to  bound  his  ambition 
until  he  passed  his  degrees  of  Batchelor  and  Master  of  Arts,  which  he  did  in  the 
years  1692  and  95,  under  the  Presidentship  of  the  memorable  Dr.  Increase 
Mather.  When  he  pronounced  the  public  Oration,  on  taking  his  Master's  De- 
gree, his  thin  and  slender  appearance,  his  soft  and  delicate  voice,  and  the  red 
spots  in  his  cheeks,  caused  the  audience  in  general  to  conclude  him  bordering  on 
a  consumption,  and  to  be  designed  but  for  a  few  weeks  of  life. 

From  the  bright  but  brief  career  of  young  Prout,  and  from  the 
"  red  spots "  on  the  cheeks  of  the  gifted  Colman,  we  fear  that  Mr. 
Cheever  did  not  always  temper  the  undue  ardor  of  his  pupils. 


I 


EZBKIEL  CHEEVER. 


17 


Of  Mr.  Cheever's  discipline,  we  may  form  some  notion  from  the 
testimony  of  his  pupils.  The  following  lines  from  Coote's  "  English 
Schoolmaster,"  a  famous  manual*  of  that  day  in  England,  may  have 
been  the  substance  of  his  "  school  code." 


THE    BCH00LMA8TER   TO    BIS   SCHOLARS. 


"  My  child  and  scholar  take  good  heed 
unto  the  words  that  here  are  set, 
And  see  thou  do  accordiagly, 
or  else  be  sure  thou  shalt  be  beat. 

First,  I  command  thee  God  to  serve, 
then,  to  thy  parents,  duty  yield; 

Unto  all  men  be  courteous, 
and  mannerly,  In  town  and  field. 

Your  cloaths  unbuttoned  do  not  use, 
let  not  your  hose  ungartered  be ; 

Have  handkerchief  in  readiness, 
Wash  hands  and  face,  or  see  not  me. 


If  broken-hos'd  or  shoe'd  you  go,  | 

or  slovenly  in  your  array, 
Without  a  girdle,  or  untrust, 

then  you  and  I  must  have  a  fray. 

If  that  thou  cry,  or  talk  aloud, 

or  books  do  rend,  or  strike  with  knife  ; 
Or  laugh,  or  play  unlawfully, 

then  you  and  I  must  be  at  sttlfe. 

If  that  you  curse,  miscall,  or  swear, 
if  that  you  pick,  filch,  steal,  or  lye ; 

If  you  forget  a  scholar's  part, 
then  must  you  sure  your  points  untye. 


If  that  to  school  you  do  not  go, 
when  time  doth  call  you  to  the  same ; 

Or,  if  you  loiter  in  the  streets, 
when  we  do  meet,  then  look  for  blame. 


X 


Lose  not  your  books,  ink-horns,  or  pens, 

nor  girdle,  garters,  bat  or  band, 
Let  shooes  be  tyed,  pin  shirt-band  close, 

keep  well  your  hands  at  any  hand. 

Wherefore,  my  child,  behave  thyself, 

so  decently,  in  all  assays. 
That  thou  may'st  purchase  parents  love, 

and  eke  obtain  thy  master's  praise." 

Although  he  was  doubtless  a  strict  disciplinarian,  it  is  evident,  from 
the  aflfectionate  manner  in  which  his  pupils,  Mather,  Bamard,~and 
Colraan  speak  of  him,  and  the  traditionary  reputation  which  has  de^ 
scended  with  his  name,  that  his  venerable  presence  was  accompanied 
Ijy"  ail  agreeable  mixture  of  majesty  and  sweetness,  both  in  his  voice 
and  countenance,"  and  that  he  secured  at  once  obedience^reyereirce,- 
and  love. 

"*  The  following  is  the  title-page  of  this  once  famous  school-book,  printed  from  a  copy  of 
the  fortieth  edition,  presented  to  the  author  of  this  sketch,  by  George  Livermore,  Esq.,  of 
Cambridge,  Mass. 

"the 

ENGLISH 

SCHOOL-MASTS  R.  -^ 

Teaching  all  his  Scholars,  of  what  age  so  ever,  the  most  easy,  short,  and  perfect  order  of 
distinct  Reading,  and  true  Writing  our  English-tongue,  that  hath 
ever  yet  been  known  or  published  by  any. 
And  further  also,  teacheth  a  direct  course,  how  many  unskilful  person  may  easily  both  under- 
stand any  hard  English  words,  which  they  shall  in  Scriptures,  Sermons,  or  else-where  hear 
or  read  ;  and  also  be  made  able  to  use  the  same  aptly  themselves ;  and  generally  whatsoever 
is  necessary  to  be  known  for  the  English  speech  :  so  that  he  which  hath  this  book  only  need- 
eth  to  buy  no  other  to  make  him  fit  from  his  Letters  to  the  Grammar- School,  for  an 
Apprentice,  or  any  other  private  use,  so  far  as  concerneth  English  :  And 
therefore  it  is  made  not  only  for  Children,  though  the  first  book 
be  meer  childish  fur  them,  but  also  for  all  other  ;  especially 
for  those  that  are  ignorant  in  the  Latin  Tongue. 
In  the  next  Page  the  School-Master  hangeth  forth  his  Table  to  the  view  of  all  beholders,  set- 
ting forth  some  of  the  chief  Commodities  of  his  profession. 
Devised  for  thy  sake  that  wantest  any  part  of  this  skill ;  by  Edward  Coote,  Master  of  the  Free- 
school  in  Saint  Edmund's- Bury. 
Perused  and  approved  by  puhliek  Authority ;  and  now  the  40  time  Imprinted :  with  certain 
Copies  to  write  by,  at  the  end  of  this  Book,  added. 
Printed  by  A.  M.  and  R,  R.  for  the  Company  of  Stationers,  1680. 


\ 


|g  EZEKIEL  CHEEVER. 

Of  the  text-books  used  by  Mr.  Cheever, — to  what  extent  the  New 
England  Primer  had  superseded  the  Royal  Primer  of  Great  Britain, 
— whether  James  Hodder  encountered  as  sharp  a  competition  as  any 
of  the  Arithmeticians  of  this  day, — whether  Lawrence  Eachard,  or 
G.  Meriton,  gave  aid  in  the  study  of  Geography  at  that  early  day,  we 
shall  not  speak  in  this  place,  except  of  one  of  which  he  was  author.* 
\  During  his  residence  at  New  Haven  he  composed  The  Accidence, 

"A  short  introduction  to  the  Latin  Tongue,'^  which,  prior  to  1790, 
had  passed  through  twenty  editions,  and  was  for  more  than  a  century 
the  hand-book  of  most  of  the  Latin  scholars  of  New  England.  We 
have  before  us  a  copy  of  the  20th  edition,  with  the  following  title 
page: 

"a   S90RT 

INTRODUCTION 

TO   THE 

LATIN  LANGUAGE: 

For  the  Use  of  the 

Lower  Forms  in  the  Latin  School. 

Being  the 

ACCIDENCE, 

Abridged  and  compiled  in  that  most  easy  and  accurate  Method,  wherein  the  famous  Mr. 

EzBKiEL  Cheever  taught,  and  which  he  found  the  most  advantageous,  by  Seventy  Year's 

Experience. 

To  which  is  added, 

A  Cataloque  of  Irregular  Nouns,  and  Verbs,  disposed  Alphabetically. 

The  Twentieth  Edition. 

s  A  L  e'  M : 

Printed  and  Sold  by  Samuel  Hall,  mdoclxxxv." 

This  little  book  embodies  Mr.  Cheever's  method  of  teaching  the 
rudiments  of  the  Latin  language,  and  was  doubtless  suggested  or 
abridged  from  some  larger  manual  used  in  the  schools  of  London  at 
the  time,  with  alterations  suggested  by  his  own  scholarly  attainments, 
and  bis  experience  as  a  teacher.  It  has  been  much  admired  by  good 
judges  for  its  clear,  logical,  and  comprehensive  exhibition  of  the  first 
principles  and  leading  inflexions  of  the  language.  The  Rev.  Samuel 
Bentley,  D.  D.,  of  Salem,  (born  1758,  and  died  1819),  a  great  anti- 
quarian and  collector  of  school-books,  in  some  "  Notes  for  an  Address 
on  Education,"  after  speaking  of  Mr.  Cheever's  labors  at  Ipswich  as 
mainly  instrumental  in  placing  that  town,  "  in  literature  and  popula- 
tion, above  all  the  towns  of  Essex  County,"  remarks :  — 

"  His  Accidence  was  the  wonder  of  the  age,  and  though,  as  his  biographer 
and  pupil,  Dr.  Cotton  Mather,  observed,  it  had  not  excluded  the  original  grammar, 
it  passed  through  eighteen  editions  before  the  Revolution,  and  had  been  used  as 
generally  as  any  elementary  work  ever  known.  The  familiar  epistles  of  this 
master  to  his  son,  minister  of  Marblehead,  are  all  worthy  of  the  age  of  Erasmus, 
and  of  the  days  of  Ascham. 

"  Before  Mr.  Cheever's  Accidence  obtuned,  Mr.  John  Brinsley's  method  had 
obtained,  and  this  was  published  in  16]1,  three  years  before  Cheever  was  born 
It  is  in  question  and  answer,  and  was  undoubtedly  known  to  Cheever,  who  has 
availed  himself  of  the  expression,  but  has  most  ingeniously  reduced  it  to  the  form 

*  Unless  some  one,  with  more  abundant  material  in  hand,  will  undertake  the  task,  we  shall 
prepare  ere  long  a  Paper  on  the  Early  School  Books  of  this  country,  published  prior  to  1800, 
with  an  approximation,  at  least,  to  the  number  issued  since  that  date. 


\i 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  I9 

of  his  Accidence, — 134  small  4to  pages  to  79  small  12mo.,  with  the  addition  of 
an  excellent  Table  of  Irregular  Verbs  from  the  great  work  of  the  days  of  Roger 
Ascham."* 

We  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  an  earlier  edition  of  this  little 
work  than  the  one  above  quoted,  or  to  ascertain  when,  or  by  whom, 
it  was  first  printed.f  An  edition  was  published  so  late  as  1838,  under 
the  title  of  Cheever's  Latin  Accidence,  with  an  announcement  on 
the  title-page  that  it  was  "  used  in  the  schools  of  this  country  for 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  previous  to  the  close  of  the  last 
century,"  This  edition  is  accompanied  by  letters  from  several  eminent 
scholars  and  teachers  highly  commendatory  of  its  many  excellencies, 
and  hopeful  of  its  restoration  to  its  former  place  in  the  schools.  "^J" 
President  Quincy,  of  Harvard  College,  says :  "  It  is  distinguished  for X 
simplicity,  comprehensiveness,  and  exactness ;  and,  as  a  primer  or  first 
elementary  book,  I  do  not  believe  it  is  exceeded  by  any  other  work, 
in  respect  to  those  important  qualities."  Samuel  Walker,  an  eminent^-—" 
instructor  of  the  Latin  language,  adds :  "The  Latin  Accidence,  which 
was  the  favorite  little  book  of  our  youthful  days,  has  probably  done 
more  to  inspire  young  minds  with  the  love  of  the  study  of  the  Latin 
language  than  any  other  work  of  the  kind  since  the  first  settlement 
of  the  country.  I  have  had  it  in  constant  use  for  my  pupils,  when- 
ever it  could  be  obtained,  for  more  than  fifty  years,  and  have  found  it 
to  be  the  best  book,  for  beginners  in  the  study  of  Latin,  that  has  come 
within  my  knowledge."  — - — 

*  Mr  John  Brinsley,  author  of  the  Latin  Accidence  referred  to,  was  the  author  of  a  little 
work  on  English  Grammar,  printed  in  1622,  with  the  following  title:  — 

CONSOLA  TION 

For  Our  grammar 

SCHOOLES ; 

OR, 

A  faithful  and  moat  comfortable  incouragement  for  laying  of  a  sure  foundation  of  a  good 

Learning  in  our  Schooles,  and  for  prosperous  building  thereupon. 
More  Specially  for  all  those  of  the  inferior  sort,  and  all  ruder  couniries  and  places  ;  namely, 
for  Ireland,  Wales,  Virginia,  with  the  Sommer  Islands,  and  for  their  more  speedie  at- 
taining of  our  English  tongue  by  the  same  labour,  that  all  may  speake  one 
and  the  same  Language.    And  withall,  for  the  helping  of  all  such 
as  are  desirous  speedlie  to  recover  that  which  they 
had  formerhe  got  in  the  Grammar  Schooles : 
and  to  proceed  aright  therein,  for  the 
perpetuall  benefit  of  these 
our  Nations,  and  of 
the  Churches 
of  Christ. 
London: 
Printed  by  Richard  Field  for  Thomas  Man.  dwelling  in  Paternoster  Row,  at  the  Sign  of 
the  Talcot,  1622;  smail  ito. 
Epistle,  dedicatory,  and  table  of  contents,  pp.  I  c84  and  Examiner's  Censure,  pp.  2. 
This  rare  treatise  is  in  the  Library  of  George  Brinley,  Esq.,  of  Hartford,  Conn, 
t  Since  the  above  paragraph  was  in  type,  we  have  seen  four  other  editions  of  the  Accidence 
the  earliest  of  which  is  the  seventh,  printed  in  Boston,  by  B.  Edes  <fc  S.  Gill,  for  I.  Edwards 
&  I.  and  T.  Leverett,  in  Cornhill,  MDCCIV.  For  an  opportunity  of  consulting  these  editions 
an  original  edition  of  Dr.  Cotton  Mather's  Funeral  Sermon  on  the  occasion  of  Chee- 
ver's death,  and  several  other  authorities  referred  to  in  this  sketch,  we  are  indebted  to  George 
Brinley,  Esq.,  of  Hartford,  who  has  one  of  the  largest  and  choicest  collection  of  books  and 
pamphlets,  printed  in  New  England,  or  relating  to  its  affairs,  civil  and  ecclesiastical, — state, 
town,  church,  and  individual,  to  be  found  in  the  country. 


20  EZBKIEL  CflEEVER. 

Mr.  Cheever  was  also  the  author  of  a  small  treatise  of  thirty-two 
pages,  of  which,  the  only  copy  we  have  seen  [in  Harvard  University 
Library]  was  published  forty-nine  years  after  his  death,  and  entitled — 

"  Scripture  Prophecies  Explained 

IN   THREE   SHORT 

ESSAYS. 

I.   On  the  Restitution  of  all  things, 

II.   On  St.  John's  first  Kesurrection, 

III.   On  the  personal  coming  of  Jesus  Christ, 

Ai  commencing  at  the  beginning  of  the  MILLENNIUM,  described  in  the  Apocalypae. 

By  EzEKiEL  Cheever, 

In  former  days  Ma.sier  of  the  Grammar  School  in  Bflston. 

'  We  have  a  more  sure  word  of  Prophecy,  whereunto  ye  do  well  thut  ye  take  heed,  tc' 

BOSTON, 

Printed  and  sold  by  Green  &  Russell,  at  their  Printing  Office,  in  Queen-street.  MDCCLVII." 

The  author  concludes  his  last  Essay  as  follows:  — 

"  Lastly.  To  conclude,  this  personal  coming  of  Christ  at  or  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  thousand  years,  is  no  other  but  the  second  coming  of  Christ,  and 
great  day  of  judgment,  which  the  Scripture  speaks  of,  and  all  Christians  believe, 
and  wait  for,  only  there  are  several  works  to  be  performed  in  the  several  parts  of 
this  great  day.  The  first  works,  in  the  first  part  or  beginning  of  this  day,  is  to 
raise  the  Saints ;  destroy  his  enemies  with  temporal  destruction ;  to  set  up  liis 
kingdom  ;  to  rule  and  reign  on  the  earth,  with  his  raised  and  then  living  Saints, 
a  thousand  years ;  after  that,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  day,  to  destroy  Gog  and 
Magog :  To  enter  upop  the  last  general  judgment,  raising  the  wicked,  judging 
them  according  to  their  works,  and  casting  them  into  the  lake  of  fire,  which  is 
the  second  death.  All  this,  from  first  to  last,  is  but  one  day  of  judgment;  that 
great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord,  and  is  but  one  coming,  which  is  his  second, 
as  we  plead  for. '  After  this,  the  work  being  finished,  Christ  will  deliver  up  his 
mediatory  kingdom  to  his  Father,  and,  himself,  become  a  subject,  that  GOD  may 
be  all  in  all.  With  this  interpreUition,  all  the  Scriptures  alleged,  and  many 
more,  will  better  agree  and  harmonize  in  a  clear  and  fair  way,  not  crossing  any 
ordinary  rules  given  of  interpreting  Scripture  than  in  restraining  Christ's  pei'soual 
coming  to  the  work  and  time  of  the  last  judgment.  And,  though  many  of  these 
Scriptures  may  have  a  spiritual  meaning,  and,  may  be  already  in  part  fulfilled, 
which  I  deny  not,  yet  that  will  not  hinder,  but  that  they  may  have  a  literal  sense 
also." 

Of  Mr.  Cheever's  personal  history,  after  he  removed  to  Boston,  we 
have  been  successful  in  gathering  but  few  particulars  not  already 
published.  From  a  petition  addressed  by  him  to  Sir  Edmund  An- 
dross,  in  1687,  some  seventeen  years  after  he  removed  to  Boston,  it 
appears,  that  he  was  then  in  prime  working  order  as  a  teacher — 
still  enjoying  his  "wonted  abilities  of  mind,  health  of  body,  vivacity 
of  spirit,  and  delight  in  his  work."  The  following  is  the  petition 
copied  from  the  Hutchinson  Papers  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  and  printed  by  Mr.  Gould : 

*'  To  His  Excellency,  Sir  Edmund  Andross,  Knight,  Governor  and  Captain 
General  of  His  Majesty^s  territories  and  dominions  in  New  England. 
"  The  humble  petition  of  Ezekiel  Cheever  of  Boston,  schoolmaster,  sheweth 
that  your  poor  petitioner  hath  near  fifty  years  been  employed  in  the  work  and 
office  of  a  public  Grammar-schoolmaster  in  several  places  in  this  country. '  With 
what  acceptance  and  success,  I  submit  to  the  judgment  of  those  that  are  able  to 
testify.  Now  seeing  that  God  is  pleased  mercifully  yet  to  continue  my  wonted 
abilities  of  mind,  health  of  body,  vivacity  of  spirit,  delight  in  my  work,  which  alone 
1  am  any  way  fit  and  capable  of,  and  whereby  I  have  my  outward  subsistence, — 
I  most  humbly  entreat  your  Excellency,  that  according  to  your  former  kindness 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  21 

BO  often  manifested,  I  may  by  your  Excellency's  fever,  allowance  and  encourage- 
ment, still  be  continued  in  my  present  place.  And  whereas  there  is  due  to  nie 
about  fifty -five  pounds  for  my  labors  past,  and  the  former  way  of  that  part  of  ray 
maintenance  is  thought  g(X)d  to  be  altered, — I  with  all  submission  beseech  your 
Excellency,  that  you  would  be  pleast-d  to  give  order  for  my  due  satisfaction,  the 
want  of  which  would  fall  heavy  upon  nie  in  my  old  age,  and  my  children  also, 
who  are  otherwise  poor  enough.  And  your  poor  petitioner  shall  ever  pray,  &c. 
Your  Excellency's  most  humble  servant, 

EZEKIEL    ChEEVER."  ,, 

He  died,*  according  to  Dr.  Mather,  "  on  Saturday  morning,  Augu8r~ 
'21,  1708 — in  the  ninety-fourth  year  of  his  age  ;  after  he  had  been  a 
skillful,  painful,  faithful  schoolmaster  for  seventy  years,  and  had  the 
singular  favor  of  Heaven,  that  though  he  had  usefully  spent  his  life 
among  children,  yet  he  was  not  become .  twice  a  child,  but  held  hia^.^/ 
abilities,  in  an  unusual  degree,  to  the  very  last," — "  his  intellectual 
force  as  little  abated  as  his  natural."  It  was  his  singular  good  fortune 
to  have  lived  as  an  equal  among  the  very  founders  of  New  England 
with  them  of  Boston,  and  Salem,  and  New  Haven, — to  have  taught 
their  children,  and  their  children's  children,  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation — and  to  have  lingered  in  the  recollections  of  his  pupils 
and  their  children,  the  model  and  monument,  the  survivor  and 
representative  of  the  Puritan  and  Pilgrim  stock,  down  almost  to  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century. 

President  Stiles  of  Yale  College,  in  his  Literary  Diary,  25th  April 
17*72,  mentions  seeing  the  "Rev.  and  aged  Mr.  Samuel  Maxwell,  of 
Warren,"  R.  I.,  in  whom  "  I  have  seen  a  man  who  had  been  ac- 
quainted with  one  of  the  original  and  first  settlers  of  New  England, 
now  a  rarity ."f  "  He  told  me  he  well  knew  the  famous  Grammar 
schoolmaster,  Mr.  E.  Cheever  of  Boston,  author  of  the  Accidence ; 
that  he  wore  a  long  white  beard,  terminating  in  a  point ;  that  when 
he  stroked  his  beard  to  the  point,  it  was  a  sign  for  the  boys  to  stand 
clear."  In  another  entry,  made  on  the  •l7th  of  July  1774,  Dr.  Stiles, 
after  noting  down  several  dates  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Cheever,  adds,  "  I 
have  seen  those  who  knew  the  venerable  saint,  particularly  the  Rev. 
John  Barnard,  of  Marblehead,  who  was  fitted  for  college  by  him,  and 
entered  1698."  Rev.  Dr.  Mather,  in  1708,  speaks  of  him  not  only  as 
his  master,  seven  and  thirty  years  ago,  but,  also,  "  as  master  to  my 
betters,  no  less  than  seventy  years  ago ;  so  long  ago,  that  I  must  even 
mention  my  father's  tutor  for  one  of  them." 

'"Venerable,"  says  Governor  Hutchinson,  in  his  History  of  Massachusetts,  (Vol.  H.,  page 
175,  Note),  "  not  merely  for  his  great .  a^e,^  but  for  having  been  the  schoolmaster  of  most 
of  the  principal  gentlemen  iu  Boston,  who  were  then  upon  the  stage.  He  is  not  the  only 
master  who  kept  his  lamp  longer  lighted  than  otherwise  it  would  have  been  by  a  supply  of 
oil  from  his  scholars." 

t  There  is  now  living  in  Bangor,  Maine,  "Father  Sawyer,"  who  was  born  in  Hebron,  Conn., 
in  Nov.,  1755,  and  who  has  preached  the  gospel  for  70  years.  He  knew  Rev.  John  Barnard, 
of  Marblehead,  a  pupil  of  Mr.  Cheever.  These  three  persons  connect  the  present  with  the 
first  generation  of  New  EngUuid. 


22  EZEKIEL  CHEEVER. 

He  was  buried,  according  to  an  entry  of  Judge  Sewall  in  his 

manuscript  Diary,*  under  date  of  August  23,  "  from  the  school-house. 

TThe  Governor,  Councillors,  Ministers,  Justices,  Gentlemen  being  there. 

1    Mr.  Williams  (his  successor  in  the  school)  made  a  handsome  o?ation 

y^  his  honor." 

•  We  are  indebted  to  Rev.  Samuel  Sewall  of  Burlington,  Mass.,  for  the  following  transcript 
/  from  the  manuscript  Diary  of  Judge  Bewail: 
/  "  Feria  septima.  August  21st  (1706).  Mr.  Edward  Oakes  tells  me.  Mr.  Chiever  died  this 
last  night.  N.  He  was  born  January  25th  1614.  Came  over  to  New  England  1637,  to  Boston, 
land  to  New  Haven  1038.  Married  In  the  Fall,  and  began  to  teach  School,  which  work  he  was 
constant  in  till  now :  firet  at  New  Haven ;  then  at  Ipswich  ;  then  at  Charlestown  ;  then  at 
Boston,  wither  he  came  in  1673  ;  so  that  he  "lias  labored  in  that  calling  skillfully,  diligently, 
constantly,  religiously,  seventy  years— a  rare  instance  of  Piety,  Health,  Strength,  and  Service, 
ableness.  The  welfare  of  the  Province  was  much  upon  his  spirit.     He  abominated  Periwigs.'" 

The  Rev.  Mr  Sewall,  in  communicating  the  above  transcript,  adds  the  following  remarks 
»y  the  way  of  postscript.  '•  Though  Judge  Sewall  wrote  the  Sentence  underscored  la«t,  yet 
|t  was  not  as  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  climax  of  the  characteristic  excellence  he  had 

Tibed  to  good  Master  Cheever,  but  as  a  fact  which  happened  to  come  into    his  mind  as  he 

'as  writing,  and  which  he  regairdedasa  recommendation  of  Mr.  Cheever.     In  his  prejudice 

;ainst  Periwigs,  he  was  not  singular.  Such  men  as  Rev.  John  Eliot  was  alike  opposed  to 
and  Rev.  Solomon  Stoddard  of  Northampton  wrote  against  them. 

The  assault  of  "the  learned  and  reverend  Mr.  Stoddard,"  of  Northampton,  on  Periwigs, 
was  in  a  letter  addressed  to  a  distinguished  citizen,  no  other  than  Chief  Justice  Sewall,  and 
published  at  Boston,  with  other  matters,  in  a  pamphlet,  in  1722,  entitled  ".dn  ansicer  to  sgrne 
eases  of  Conscience  respecting  the  Country."  Afler  disposing  of  some  grave  questions 
touching  the  oppression  of  the  poor  and  ignorant  by  the  knowing  and  crafty,  in  selling  at  an 
exorbitant  prpfit,  in  depreciating  the  currency  of  the  country,  in  taking  advantage  of  the 
necessities  of  a  man  in  debt,  the  author  passes  to  the  consideration  of  the  lawfulness  in  the 
light  of  scripture,  of  men  wearing  their  hair  long,  or  of  cutting  it  oflf  entirely,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  substituting  the  hair  of  other  persons,  and  even  of  horses  and  goats.  "Although  I 
cannot  condemn  them  universally,  yet,  in  wearing  them,  there  is  abundance  of  sin.  First, 
when  men  do  wear  them,  needlessly,  in  compliance  with  the  fashion.  Secondly,  when  they 
do  wear  them  in  such  a  ruffianly  way  as  it  would  be  utterly  unlawful  to  wear  their  own  hair 
in.  Some  of  the  wigs  are  of  unreasonable  length  ;  and,  generally,  they  are  extravagant  as  to 
their  bushiness."  He  not  only  condemns  the  wig  because  it  is  "  wasteful  as  to  cost,  but.  be- 
cause it  is  contrary  to  gravity."  "  It  makes  the  wearers  of  them  look  as  if  they  were  more 
disposed  to  court  a  maid  than  to  bear  upon  their  hearts  the  weighty  concernments  of  God's 
kingdom." 

But,  Mr.  Stoddard  and  Mr.  Cheever  were  not  alone  in  their  abhorence  of  wearing  peri- 
wigs. The  Apostle  Eliot,  talked,  prayed,  and  preached  for  its  suppression.  The  legislative 
authorities  of  Massachusetts  denounced  "  the  practice  of  mens  wearing  their  own  or  other's 
hair  made  into  periwigs."  It  was  made  a  test  of  godliness  and  church- membership.'  In 
spite  of  the  authority  given  to  the  custom  by  William  Penn,  who,  according  to  his  biographer, 
"  had  four  wigs  with  him,  which  cost  him  twenty  pounds,"  the  Friends,  in  their  monthly 
session,  at  Hampton,  in  1721,  made  this  decision  :  "  It  was  concluded  by  this  meeting  that  the 
wearing  of  extravagant,  superfluous  wigs  is  altogether  contrary  to  truth."  In  the  second 
church  of  Newbury,  in  1752,  one  Richard  Bartlett  was  "  dealt  with  " :  First,  our  said  brother 
refuses  communion  with  the  church  for  no  other  reason,  but  because  the  peistor  wears  a  wig, 
and  because  the  church  justifies  him  in  it ;  setting  up  his  own  opinion  in  opposition  to  the 
church,  contrary  to  that  humility  which  becomes  a  Christian.  Second,  and  farther,  in  an 
unchristian  manner,  he  censures  and  condemns  both  pastor  and  church  as  anti-Christian  on 
the  aforesaid  account,  and  be  sticks  not,  from  time  to  time,  to  assert,  with  the  greatest  assur- 
ance, that  all  who  wear  wigs  unless  they  repent  of  that  particular  sin,  before  they  die,  will 
certainly  be  damned,  which  we  judge  to  be  a  piece  of  uncharitable  and  sinful  rashness.'- 
This  custom  prevailed  in  England  and  France,  as  well  as  in  this  country,  and  there,  as  well 
as  here,  provoked  the  attacks  of  the  pulpit  and  the  satirist,  but  gradually  disappeared,  or  gave 
place  to  other  fashions  of  the  toilet,  if  not  quite  so  monstrous,  full  as  expensive  and  as  absard. 
"  There  is  no  accounting  for  taste."    See  Felt's  Customs  of  New  England. 


(1 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  23 

Rev.  I^Cotton  Mather  "  improved  the  occasion"  of  the  death  of  this 
"  faithful,  successful,  venerable,  and  beloved  teacher,"  by  preaching  a 
Funeral  Sermon,  in  which  he  set  forth  in  his  own  peculiar  pedantic 
manner  and  style,  the  duty  of  towns  and  parents  to  provide  schools, 
employ,  pay,  and  honor  competent  teachers,  and  look  diligently  after 
the  good  education  of  children.  This  sermon,  which  the  author  pro- 
nounces A  doing  of  Justice,  was  printed  with  the  following  title  page. 

Corderius  Americanus. 

AN  ESSAY 

rPON 

The  Good  EDUCATION  of  CHILDREN. 
And  what  may  Hopefully  be  Attempted,  for  the  Hope  of  the  FL  OC  K. 

FUNERAL  SERMON 

UPON 

MR.  EZEKIEL.  CHEEVER 

The  Ancient  and  Honourable  MASTER  of  the  FREE-SCHOOL  in  BosUm. 

Who  left  off,  but  when  Mortality  took  him  off,  in  August,  1708, 

the  Ninety  Fourtli  Year  of  his  Age. 

With  an  ELEGY  and  EPITAPH  upon  him. 

By  one  that  teas  once  a  Scholar  to  him. 

Vester  [CHEEVERUS,]  cum  sic  moritur,  non  moritur 

BOSTON,  Printed  by  John  Allen,  for  Nicholas  Boone,  at  the  Sign  of  the  BU>le  in 
Comhill,  near  the  Corner  of  School-street.     1708. 

From  this  pamphlet,  now  rarely  to  be  met  with  even  in  the  col- 
lections of  antiquarians  and  Historical  Societies,  we  proceed  to  give 
some  extracts,  both  for  the  light  they  throw  on  the  character  and  ser- 
vices of  Ezekiel  Cheever,  and  for  the  substantial  and  wholesome  doc- 
trine, which  is  as  good  now  as  it  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
when.it  was  uttered  by  Dr.  Mather.  His  motives  for  publishing  the  Ser- 
mon and  Essay,  are  thus  set  forth  in  the  "  Historical  Introduction" : 

"  DUTY  to  the  Merit  and  Memory  of  my  Departed  MASTER,  is  now  in  its 
Operation.  The  Fifth  Commandinent  well  considered  will  demand  such  a  Duty. 
When  Quirinus  made  a  Marble  Monument  for  his  Master,  there  was  this  Effect 
of  it,  Jnvisunt  Locum  Studiosi  Juvenes  frequenter,  ut  hoc  Exemplo  Edocti, 
quantum  Discipuli  ipsi  prcEceptoribus  fuia  debeant,  perpetuo  meminisse  velint. 
Scholars  that  saw  it,  Learnt  from  the  Sight  what  Acknowledgments  were  due 
from  Scholars  to  their  Masters.  I  with  my  little  feeble  Essay  for  Mine,  may  in  any 
measure  animate  the  Gratitude  of  any  Scholars  to  their  Well-deserving  Tutors. 

A  due  Care  about  a  Funeral  for  the  Dead,  among  the  Jews  had  that  Phrase 
for  it ;  A  Bestowing  of  Mercy.  But  the  Sermon  which  I  have  Employ'd  on 
the  Funeral  of  my  Master,  must  be  called  ;  A  Doing  of  Justice.  And  I  am 
very  much  misinformed,  if  this  were  not  the  General  Voice  of  all  the  Auditory. 

After  apologizing  for  the  imperfection  of  his  work,  and  giving  the 
principal  incidents  in  the  life  of  Cheever,  he  concludes  the  Intro- 
duction as  follows : 

"  It  is  a  Common  Adage  in  the  Schools  of  the  Jews ;  A  just  man  never  dies, 
till  there  be  born  in  his  room,  one  that  is  like  him.  So  Grown  a  Town  as 
33oJ5ton,  is  capable  of  honourably  Supporting  more  than  one  Grammar-School. 
And  it  were  to  be  wished,  That  several  as  able  as  our  CHEEVER,  might  arise 
in  his  room,  to  carry  on  an  Excellent  Education  in  them.  Our  Glorious  LORD 
can  make  such  men.  But,  Oh !  That  SCHOOLS  were  more  Encouraged, 
throughout  the  Country ! 

I  remember,  the  Jewish  Masters  have  a  Dispute  about  the  Reasons  of  the 
Destruction  of  Jerusalem.  And  among  the  rest  the  Judgment  of  R.  Menona, 
was ;  It  had  not  been  destroyed,  but  for  their  not  minding  to  bring  up  their 
Children  in  the  School.  Verily,  There  cannot  be  a  more  Threatning  Symptom 
of  Destruction  upon  us,  than  there  would  be  in  tltis  thing ;  If  we  should  fall 
into  the  Folly  of  Not  Minding  to  bring  up  our  Children  in  the  School. 


24  EZEKIEL  CBEEVER. 

"  The  Pastors  of  the  Churches  must  more  bestir  themselves.  O  Men  of  Grod, 
Awake ;  And  let  the  Cares  of  our  ELIOT*  for  his  Roxbury,^  be  a  pattern  for  you !" 

The  doctrine  of  the  Discourse  [That  saving  wisdom  is  to  be  fetched 
from  the  knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures^  and  that  the  earhj  knowl- 
edge of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  is  the  way  to  be  betimes  made  wise  unto 
salvation,]  is  drawn  from  2.  Timothy,  iii  chapter,  and  16th  verse — 
From  a  child  thou  hast  known  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  are  able  to 
make  thee  wise  unto  salvation.  The  preacher  enlarges  on  the  "  inex- 
pressible consequence"  of  the  right  education  of  children.  "Unwerthy 

*  Dr.  Mather,  in  the  Magnalia,  in  his  Life  of  Eliot,  speaking  of  "  bis  cares  about  the  chil< 
dren  of  his  people,"  remarks:  "  I  have  cause  to  remember  with  what  an  hearty,  fervent,  zeal- 
ous application,  he  addressed  himself,  when,  in  the  name  of  the  neighbour,  pastors,  and 
churches,  he  gave  me  the  right  hand  of  their  fellowship,  at  my  ordination,  and  said.  Brother, 
art  thou  a  lover  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  7  Then,  I  pray,  feed  his  lambs."  Besides  his  la- 
bours direct  and  abundant  for  the  catechetical  and  direct  religious  instruction  of  children  by 
himself,  as  their  pastor,  and,  through  their  parents,  '•  he  showed  his  regard  for  the  welfare  of 
the  poor  children  under  his  charge  by  his  perpetual  resolution  and  activity  to  support  a  good 
schoU  in  the  town  that  belonged  unto  him.  A  grammar-sc/ioo2  he  would  always  have  upon 
the  place,  whateverit  cost  him  ;  and,  he  importuned  aU  other  places  to  have  the  like.  I  can- 
not forget  the  ardour  with  which  1  once  heard  him  pray,  in  a  synod  of  these  churches,  which 
met  at  Boston,  to  consider  how  the  miscarriages  which  were  among  us  might  be  prevented ;  I 
say,  with  what  fervour  he  uttered  an  expression  to  this  purpose.  Lord, /or  schools  everywhere 
among  us!  That  our  schools  may  flourish !  That  every  m,ember  of  this  assembly  may  go 
home  and  procure  a  good  school  to  be  encouraged  in  the  town  where  he  lives !  That,  be/ore  we 
die,  we  may  be  so  happy  as  to  see  a  good  school  encouraged  in  every  plantation  of  the  country. 
God  so  blessed  his  endeavours  that  iZozftury  could  not  live  quietly  without  a  free  school  in  the 
town  ;  and  the  issue  of  it  has  been  one  thing  which  has  made  me  almost  put  the  i\{\t  o(  Schola 
Illustris  upon  that  little  nursery ;  that  is,  that  Roxbury  has  afforded  more  scholars,  first  for 
the  coUedge,  and  then  for  the  publick,  than  any  town  of  its  bigness,  or,  if  I  mistake  not,  of 
twice  its  bigness,  in  all  New-England.  From  the  spring  of  the  school  at  Roxbury,  there  have 
run  a  large  number  of  the  streams  which  have  made  glad  this  whole  city  of  God.  I  perswade 
my  self  that  the  good  people  of  Roxbury  will  for  ever  scorn  to  begrutch  the  cost,  or  to  permit 
the  death  of  a  school  which  God  has  made  such  an  honour  to  them  ;  and.  this  the  rather  be- 
cause their  deceased  Eliot  has  left  them  a  fair  part  of  his  own  estate,  for  the  maintaining  of 
the  school  in  Roxbury ;  and,  I  hope,  or,  at  least,  I  wish,  that  the  ministers  of  New-England 
may  be  as  ungainsayably  importunate  with  their  people  as  Mr.  Eliot  was  with  his,  for  schools 
which  may  seasonably  tinge  the  young  souls  of  the  rising  generation.  A  want  of  education 
for  them  is  the  blackest  and  saddest  of  all  the  bad  omens  that  are  upon  us." 

'  Under  the  lead  of  the  Rev.  John  Eliot,  sundry  inhabitants  of  Roxbury,  in  1645,  only  fifteen 
years  after  the  first  settlement  of  the  town,  bound  themselves  and  their  estates  for  ever  for 
the  payment  of  a  certain  sum  yearly  for  the  support  of  a  Free  School.  In  1669,  Mr.  Thomas 
Bill  bequeathed  a  large  estate,  in  Roxbury,  to  Mr.  John  Eliot,  "  in  trust  for  the  maintenance 
of  a  school-master  and  a  Free  School,  for  the  teaching  and  instructing  of  poor  men's  chil- 
dren." From  these  beginnings  grew  up  the  "  Grammar  School  in  the  Easterly  Part  of  Ro.x- 
bury,"  whose  interesting  history  has  been  written  by  Richard  G.  Parker.  This  school 
numbers  among  its  early  teachers  several  men  who  afterwards  became  eminent  among  the 
divines,  lawyers,  and  statesmen  of  the  country.  Among  them  we  find,  in  1760,  the  name  of 
Joseph  Warren,  who,  in  1776,  went  up  on  Bunker  Hill,  to  die  for  his  country.  In  1716,  in  a 
Preamble  to  an  order  relating  to  this  school,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  it  is  set  forth 
"that  the  said  Free  School  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  famous  schools  in  the  Province,  where 
by  the  favor  of  God  more  persons  have  had  their  education,  who  have  been  and  now  are 
worthy  Ministers  to  the  everlasting  Gospel  than  in  any  town  of  the  like  bigness."  In  1674, 
the  Ffeoffees  covenant  with  John  Pruddcn  to  keep  the  school,  in  which  said  Prudden  on  his 
part  engages  "  to  use  his  best  endeavors,  both  by  precept  and  example,  to  instruct  in  all 
Scholasticall,  morall,  and  theologicall  discipline,"  and  the  Ffeoffees,  on  theirs,  to  allow  him  in 
recompence  for  teaching  their  children  [he  being  at  liberty  to  receive  other  scholars  on  pay], 
twenty-five  pounds,  "  to  be  paid  three  quarters  in  Indian  Corn  or  peas,  and  the  other  fourth 
part  in  barley,  and  good  and  merchantable,  at  price  current  in  the  country  rate."  In  fitting 
up  the  school  with  "  benches  and  formes,  with  tables  for  the  Schollars  to  rite,"  in  1652,  "a 
desk  to  put  the  Dictionary  on  "  was  provided  for. 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  25 

to  be  parents,  most  worthy  to  be  esteemed  rather  monsters  than 
parents  are  they,  who  are  not  solicitous  to  give  their  children  an 
agreeable  and  religious  education."  That  children  may  "  learn  to 
read  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  this  as  early  as  may  be,"  he  exclaims 
energetically,  in  capitals  and  italics — "to  school  therefore  with 
them !  Let  them  not  be  loitering  at  home,  or  playing  abroad,  when 
they  should,  be  at  school.  Be  more  concerned  for  their  schoolinr/ 
than  for  their  cloathing.  If  there  be  any,  as  I  suppose  there  cannot 
be  many  so  necessitous,  as  to  call  for  it,  let  us  in  this  town  go  on  with 
<Mjr  Charity  School."  In  reply  to  inquiry  who  it  is  that  is  to  teach 
the  children — "  Come  all  hands  to  the  work !"  "  The  Pastors  must 
not  neglect  the  children  of  the  flock.  The  charge  of  our  Lord  unto 
them  is — Feed  my  Lambs.  It  is  thrice  proposed  as  if  it  were  at  least 
one  third  part  of  the  pastoral  charge."  Is  there  not  a  disposition 
in  our  day  to  throw  this  whole  charge  upon  teachers  ? 

"  The  MASTER  and  MISTRESS,  in  the  SCHOOL,  may  do  much  in  this 
Noble  Work.  We  read,  The  Little  Ones  have  their  Angels.  Truly,  to  Teach 
the  Little  Ones,  the  Knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  make  them  Wise 
unto  Salvation,  it  is  a  stately  work ;  I  had  almost  call'd  it ;  A  Work  for  Angels. 
It  is  an  Hard  Work  to  keep  a  School ;  and  hardly  ever  duly  Recompensed.  I 
suppose,  It  is  easier  to  be  at  the  Plough  all  day,  than  in  the  School,  liut  it  is  a 
Good  Work :  It  is  Gods  Plough ;  and  God  speed  it !  I  would  not  have  you 
weaiy  of  it.  Melchior  Adam  did  well  to  call  it,  Molestissimam,  sed  Deo  longe 
gratissimam  Functionem ;  A  work,  tho'  very  Tiresome,  and  Troublesome  to  the 
Flesh,  yet  most  highly  Acceptable  to  God.  Go  on  with  it  Chcarfully ;  And 
often  Teach  the  Children  something  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  often  drop  some 
Honey  out  of  that  Rock  upon  them.  Who  can  tell,  but  you  may  Teach  them 
the  Things  that  shall  save  their  Souls,  and  they  shall  bless  God  for  you  and  with 
you,  throughout  Eternal  Ages  ?  Every  time  a  New  Child  comes  to  the  School, 
Oh  !  why  should  you  not  think  I  Here  my  glorious  LORD  sends  me  another 
Object,  on  which  I  may  do  some  thing,  to  advance  His  Kingdom  in  the  World  ! 

But ;  Lastly,  and  yet  First  of  all,  O  PARENTS  Arise  ;  This  matter  chiefly 
belongs  unto  you  ;  we  also  will  be  with  you.  None,  I  say,  None,  are  so  much 
concerned,  as  Parents  to  look  after  it,  that  their  Children  be  taught  the  Knowl- 
edge of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Our  famous  King-  Elfred,  procured  a  Law,  That 
every  man  who  had  but  as  much  as  Two  Hides  of  Land,  should  bring  up  his 
Children  to  Learning,  till  Fifteen  Years  of  Age  at  least ;  that  so  they  might 
Know  Christ,  and  Live  Happily;  Else,  he  said.  They  were  but  Beasts  and 
Sots.  T  am  to  press  it,  That  Parents  give  their  Children  all  the  learning  thtiy 
can ;  especially  that  which  will  bring  them  to  Know  Christ,  and  Live  Happily. ^^ 

After  addressing  himself  particularly  to  the  children  and  teachers. 

of  his  auditory,  he  concludes  his  discourse  by  the  tbllowing  "  lengthy  " 

but  "  reasonable  corollary : " 

"  Worthy  of  Honour  are  the  TEACHERS  that  Convey  Wisdom  unto  our  Chil- 
dren ;  Worthy  of  Double  Honour  the  Happy  Instruments  that  Convey  Saving 
Wisdom  to  them !  There  are  some  whose  peculiar  Profession  it  is,  to  assist  the 
Education  of  our  Children  ;  and  it  is  therefore  their  Endeavour  to  give  them  a 
Religious  Education.  Their  Employment  is  to  bestow  Useful  and  Various 
Learning  on  our  Children ;  but  they  make  their  Employment,  a  precious  Ad- 
vantage to  Learn  them  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  make  them  Wise  for  Eternity. 

These  our  SCHOOL-MASTERS,  deserve  a  great  Encouragement.  We  are 
not  Wise  for  our  Children,  if  we  do  not  greatly  Encourage  them. 

The  PARTICULAR  PERSONS,  who  have  their  Children,  in  the  Tutelage 
of  Skilful  and  Careful  School-Masters,  ought  to  make  them  suitable  Recom- 
pences.     Their  Stipends  are  generally  far  short  of  their  Deserts.     They  deserve 


23  EZERIEL  CHEEVER. 

Additional  Compensations.  Their  paint  are  not  small.  What  they  Do  is  very 
(Jreat.  And  surely  our  Cliildrcn  arc  very  Avar  to  ii«;  T  need  not  quote  Euri- 
pides to  toil  you,  Tiiat  they  aro  as  the  very  Life  and  Soul,  unto  all  Mankind.  I 
can't  but  nbsi  rve  it  with  a  just  Indji^nation ;  to  Feed  our  Children,  to  Cloath  our 
Children,  To  do  any  thing  for  the  Bodies  of  our  Children  ;  or  perhaps  to  Teach 
them  some  Tri^fle  at  a  Dancing  School,  scarcely  worth  their  Learning,  we  count 
no  Expence  too  much ;  At  the  siune  time  to  have  the  Minds  of  our  Children 
IJnr.eheii  with  the  most  valuable  Knowledge,  \\vY'.\  To  what  purpose?  is  the 
cry:  a  little  Expence,  how  heavily  if  goes  offl  My  Brethren,  These  things  ought 
not  so  to  he.  Well-taught  Children  are  certainly  very  much  to  he  accounted  of. 
When  the  Mother  (jf  the  Gracchi  w;is  ask'd  for  the  sight  of  her  Ornaments,  how 
instructively  did  she  piesent  her  Two  Sons  brought  up  in  I>carning  and  Vertue, 
jis  the  brightest  of  all  her  Ornaments  !  If  we  were  duly  sensible,  how  vast  a 
comfort  it  is,  how  vast  a  Co::cern,  to  have  Well-taught  Children,  we  should 
stu:iy  all  the  ways  imaginable,  to  express  our  Thankfulness  unto  the  Teachers 
of  them.  And  it  will  not  be  complain'd,  That  a  Mecavas  is  to  be  no  where  found, 
but  in  Horace's  Poetry.  The  Christian  Emperour  Gratian,  One  of  the  Best 
men,  that  ever  Svvay'd  the  Roman  Scepter,  conferr'd  Riches  and  Honours  on  his 
Master  Ansonius,  and  he  sent  him  that  agreeable  Compliment  with  them  ;  Sir, 
I  have  paid  what  J  Ow'd,  and  I  still  owe  what  I  have  paid.  Language  agree- 
able to  the  Spirit  of  Christianity  .'  Yes,  a  Zeno,  that  w.is  a  Stranger  to  it,  yet 
has  this  recorded  in  his  Commendation,  That  Ae  would  give  his  Master  as  much 
again  as  the  wages  he  ask'd  of  him.  I  hope,  he  won't  be  the  only  One,  that 
shall  have  such  a  thing  spoken  of  him  I 

And  the  more  Liberal  Provision  the  PUBLICK  does  make  for  Industrious, 
Well-accomplished,  Well-di.sposed  School-masters,  the  more  is  the  Publick  Wis- 
dom Testified  &  Propagated !  Ammi<Enus  Marcellinus,  the  Historian,  tho'  a 
great  Admirer  of  Julian  &  of  Paganism,  yet  condemns  his  prohibition  of 
School-masters  unto  the  Christians :  Illud  autem  incleinens  obruendum  perenni 
silentio,  quod  arcebat  docere,  Magistros  Rhetoricos  et  Grammaticos,  Ritus 
Christiani  Gultores.  But,  Syrs,  If  j-ou  do  not  Encourage  your  School-masters, 
you  do  a  part  of  Julianism,  and  as  bad  as  Prohibit  them.  Certainly,  If  some- 
thing of  Julianism  did  not  prevail  too  much  among  us,  (which  among  a  People 
of  our  Profession  is  highly  scandalous,)  we  might  ere  now  have  seen,  besides  the 
petty  Schools  of  every  Town,  a  Grammar-School  at  the  Head  Town  of  every 
County,  and  an  Able  School-master  with-an  ample  Salary,,  the  Shepherd  in  it ; 
a  Thing  so  often,  so  often  unsuccessfully  petition'd  for  I  We  hear  Good  Words 
now  and  then  spoken  for  the  Tribe  of  Levi.  I  desire,  to  speak  one  for  the  tribe 
of  SIMEON.  The  Simeonites  were  the  School-masters  that  were  Scattered 
in  Israel.  I  assure  my  self.  That  Ours,  do  watch  against  the  Anger  which  is 
fierce,  and  the  Wrath  which  is  cruel ;  and  that  they  use  not  Instruments  of  Cru- 
elty in  their  Habitations ;  but  prudently  study  the  Tempers  of  the  Children, 
they  have  to  deal  withal.  Tho'  Moses  left  them  out  of  his  Blessing;  [the  Tribe 
not  having  then  done  any  thing  since  Jacobs  dying  Oracles,  to  signalize  them.] 
Yet  our  Glorious  JESUS,  has  a  Blessing  for  them.  They  Serve  Him  wonder- 
fully. His  People  will  also  Bless  them,  and  Bless  God  for  them.  And  so  will  I 
this  Day  do  for  MY  MxVSTER,  in  this  Congregation  of  the  Ix)rd. 

.SCHOOL- .VI  ASTERS  that  have  Used  the  Office  well  purchase  to  themselves, 
a  Good  Esteem  to  Out-live  their  Death,  as  well  as  Merit  for  themselves  a  gf>oti 
Support  while  they  Live.  'Tis  a  Justice  to  them,  that  they  .should  be  had  in  Ever- 
lasting Remembrance  ;  And  a  Place  and  a  Name  among  those  Just  men,  does 
particularly  belong  to  that  Ancient  and  Honourable  Man  ;  a  Master  in  our 
Israel;  who  was  with  us,  the  last  Time  of  my  Standing  here;  but  is  lately 
Translated  unto  the  Colledge  of  Blessed  Spirits,  in  the  Mansions,  where  the 
FIRST  RESURRECTION  is  Waited  and  Longed  for.  Allow  me  the  E.xpression  ; 
For  I  Learn't  it  of  my  Hebrew  Masters,  among  whom,  'tis  a  phrase  for  the  Death 
of  Learned  and  Worthy  men,  Requisiti  sunt  in  Academiam  Caslestem. 

Verrius  the  Miister  to  the  Nephews  of  Augustus,  had  a  Statue  Erected  for 
him  ;  And  Antonius  obtained  from  the  Senate,  a  Statue  for  his  Master  Fronto. 
I  am  sorry  that  Mine  has  none.  And  Cato  counted  it  more  glorious  than  any 
Statue,  to  have  it  asked,  Why  has  he  None  ?  But  in  the  grateful  memories  of 
hie  Scholars,  there  have  been  and  will  be  Hundreds  Erected  for  him. 

Under  him  we  Learnt  an  Oration,  made  by  Tally,  in  praise  of  his  own  Master; 
namely  that,  Pro  Archia  Poeta.    A  Pagan  shall  not  outdo  us,  in  our  Gratitude 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  27 

unto  our  Master.  There  was  a  famous  Christian  in  the  Primitive  Times,  who 
wrote  a  whole  Book,  iii  prais«  of  his  Master  Hierotheua;  Entituling  it,  irtju  r* 
liaxapm  U^oOev  Concerning  the  Blessed  Ilierolheus.  And  if  I  now  say  a  few 
things,  Concerning  the  Blessed  CUEiiVER,  no  man  who  thinks  well  of  Gra- 
titude, or  likes  well  to  see  the  Fifth  Commandment  observed,  will  censure  it. 

In  the  Imperial  Law,  we  ri-ad,  that  Good  Grammarians,  liaving  taught  with 
diligence  Twenty  Years,  were  to  have  Special  Honour  conferr'd  upon  them.  1 
Challenge  for  MY  MASTER,  more  than  a  Treble  portion  of  that  Special 
Honour.  But,  Oh,  Let  it  all  pass  thro'  him,  up  to  the  Glorious  LORD,  who 
made  him  to  be  wliat  he  was ! 

His  Eminent  Abilities  for  the  Work,  which  rendred  him  so  long  Useful  in 
his  Generation,  were  universally  acknowledged.  The  next  edition  of,  Tran- 
quillus  de  Claris  Grammaticis,  may  well  enough  bring  him  into  the  Catalogue, 
and  acknowledge  him  a  Master.  He  was  not  a  Meer  Grammarian;  yet  he 
was  a  Pure  One.  And  let  no  Envy  Misconstrue  it,  if  I  say.  It  was  noted,  that 
when  Scholars  came  to  be  Admitted  into  the  Colledge,  they  who  came  from  the 
Cheeverian  Education,  were  generally  the  most  unexceptionable.  What 
Exception  shall  be  made,  Let  it  fall  ujxjn  Aim,  that  is  now  speaking  of  it. 

He  flourished  so  long  in  this  Great  Work,  of  brinojing  our  Sons  to  be  Men, 
that  it  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  send  forth  many  Bezaleels  and  Aholiabs  for 
the  Service  of  the  Tabernacle  ;  and  Men  fitted  for  all  Good  Employments.  He 
that  was  my  Master,  Seven  and  Thirty  Years  ago,  was  a  Master  to  many  of  my 
Betters,  no  less  than  Seventy  Years  ago  ;  so  long  ago,  that  I  must  even  mention 
my  Fathers  Tutor  for  one  of  them. 

And  as  it  is  written  for  the  Lasting  Renown  of  the  Corderius,  whose  Colloquies 
he  taught  us ;  That  the  Great  CALVIX  had  been  a  Scholar  to  him  ;  So  this  our 
AMERICAN  Corderius  had  many  Scholars  that  were  a  Crown  unto  him  ;  yea, 
many  that  will  be  his  Crown  in  the  Presence  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  his  Com- 
ing; yea,  many  that  were  got  into  the  Heavenly  World  before  him.  And  the 
mention  of  the  Heavenly  World,  leads  me  to  that  which  I  would  principally  take 
notice  of  His  PIETY,  I  say.  His  PIETY  ;  and  his  care  to  infuse  Documents 
of  Piety  into  the  Scholars  of  his  Charge,  tliat  he  might  carry  them  with  him  to 
the  Heavenly  World.  When  Aristotle  set  up  a  Monument  for  his  Master  Plato, 
he  inscribed  upon  it,  this  Testimony,  HE  WAS  ONE  WHOM  ALL  GOOD 
MEN  OUGHT  TO  L\UTATE,  AS  WELL  AS  TO  CELEBRATE.  MY 
MASTER  went  thro'  his  Hard  Work  with  so  much  Delight  in  it,  as  a  work  for 
GOD  and  CHRIST,  and  His  People :  He  so  constantly  Prayed  with  us  every 
Day,  Catechised  us  every  Week,  and  let  fall  such  Holy  Counsels  upwn  us ;  He 
took  so  many  Occasions,  to  make  Speeches  unto  us,  that  should  make  us  Afraid 
of  Sin,  and  of  incurring  the  fearful  Judgments  of  God  by  Sin ;  That  I  do  propose 
him  for  Imitation. 

Verily,  If  all  School-masters  would  Watch  for  Souls,  and  wisely  spread  the 
Nets  of  Salvation  for  the  Souls  of  their  Children,  in  the  midst  of  all  their  Teach- 
ing ;  Or,  if  the  wondrous  Rules  of  Education,  lately  published  and  practised, 
in  that  Wonder  of  the  World,  the  School  of  Glaucha  near  Hall  in  the  Lower 
Saxony,  were  ahvays  attended :  Who  can  tell,  what  Blessed  Effects  might  be 
seen,  in  very  many  Children  made  wise  unto  Salvation  ?  Albertus,  who  from 
his  Great  Learning  had  the  Syrname  of  Magnus,  desired  of  God  some  years 
before  he  died,  That  he  might  forget  all  his  other  Learning,  and  be  wholly 
Swallow''d  up  in  Religion.  I  would  not  propose  unto  you.  My  Masters,  That 
you  should  Forget  all  other  Learning.  By  all  means  furnish  the  Children  with 
as  much  Learning  as  ever  you  can.  But  be  not  so  Swallowed  up  with  other 
Learning,  as  to  Forget  Religion,  &  the  Knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
Look  upon  other  things  to  be  (as  a  Speech  in  Parliament  once  elegantly  called 
them,)  only  the  Et  Ceetera^s,  to  Religion.  Why  should  not  a  School-master  be 
to  his  r:tiililrr>n,  A  Srhipl  mniittn'  to  ftniig  them  Muta  Christ?  This  was  the 
Study  of  our  CHEEVER.  The  famous  Dr.  Reynolds,  in  a  Funeral  Sermon  on 
an  Excellent  School-master,  in  the  City  of  London,  has  a  passage  worthy  to  be 
written  in  Letters  of  Gold.  Saj-s  he,  '  If  Grammar- Schools  have  Holy  and 
'  Learned  men  set  over  them,  not  only  the  Brains,  but  the  Souls  of  the  Children 
'  might  be  there  Enriched,  and  the  Wmk  of  Learning  and  of  Conversion  too,  bo 
'  Betimes  wrought  in  them  I' 

I  shall  not  presume  to  1  )iet4ite,  upon  this  matter,  or  to  Enquire,  Why  Casta- 
lio^s  Dialogues,  be  not  Look'd  upon  as  one  of  the  best  School  Books,  for  the  Latin 


1 


28 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVKR. 


Tongue,  in  all  the  World  ?  Or,  Why  for  the  Greek,  there  is  no  more  Account 
made  of  Posseliua  ?  Or,  indeed  whj-  (to  express  my  self  in  the  Terms  of  a 
Modern  Writer,)  'there  should  not  be  North-west  Passage  found,  for  the  Attain- 
'  ing  of  the  Latin  Tongue;  that  instead  of  a  Journey,  which  may  be  dispatch'd 
'  in  a  few  Days,  they  may  not  wander  like  the  Children  of  Israel,  Forty  Years  in 
'the  Wilderness.  And  why  they  should  so  much  converse  with  the  Poets,  at 
'  that  Age,  when  they  read  them,  with  so  much  Difficulty,  and  so  little  Helish.' 
But  I  will  venture  upon  it,  as  neither  a  Tedious  Parenthesis,  nor  a  needless 
Digression,  to  single  out  only  Two  passages  of  many  this  way  which  in  my  small 
Reading  I  have  met  withal. 

The  first  is  this ;  I  have  seen  this  Experiment  among  others  recorded  of  one 
that  had  a  Number  of  Little  Folks  under  his  Charge. 

'  Moreover,  He  made  it  his  Custome,  that  in  every  Recitation,  he  would, 
'  from  something  or  other  occurring  in  it,  make  an  occasion,  to  let  fall  some 
'  Sentence,  which  had  a  Tendency  to  promote  the  Fear  of  God  in  their  Hearts ; 
'  which  thing  fometimes  did  indeed  put  him  to  more  than  a  little  study  ;  but  the 
*  Good  Effect  sufficiently  Recompenced  it.' 

Another  is  this.  A  late  Writer  ha's  these  words;  'Many  Children  are 
'  sooner  taught  what  Jupiter,  Mars,  &  such  Pagan  Grods  were,  then  what,  Father, 
'  Son,  and  Spirit  is.  Augustine  of  old  complain'd  of  this ;  of  Learning  in  the 
'  Schools,  Joves  Adulteries  ;  and  for  giving  an  Account  of  such  things,  sailh  he, 
'  ob  hoc  bona  spei  puer  appellabar.  Luther  also  complained,  That  our  Schools 
'  were  more  Pagan  than  Christian.  I  refer  the  unsatisfied  Reader,  to  Pasora 
'  Preface  to  his  Lexicon.  I  knew  an  aged  and  famous  School-master ;  that  after 
'  he  had  kept  School  about  Fifty  years,  said,  with  a  very  sad  countenance,  That  it 
'was  a  great  Trouble  to  him,  that  he  had  spent  so  much  time  in  Reading  Pagan 
'  Authors  to  his  Scholars,  and  wish'd  it  were  customary  to  read  such  a  Book  as 
'  Duports  Verses  upon  Job,  rather  than  Homer,  and  such  Books,  I  pray  God, 
'  put  it  in  the  Hearts  of  a  W'ise  Parliament,  to  Purge  our  Schools;  that  instead  of 
'  Learning  vain  Fictions,  and  Filthy  Stories,  they  may  be  acquainted  with  the 
'  Word  of  God,  and  with  Books  containing  Grave  Sayings,  and  things  that  may 
'  make  them  truly  Wise  and  Useful  in  the  World.' 

Ye  have  heard,  what  MY  MASTER  was,  In  the  School.  Sir  Walter 
Rawleign  commends  it  as  a  piece  of  wisdom,  to  use  great  moderation  when  we 
are  treating  men  with  Commendation.  I  will  not  forget  the  Rule,  in  carrying  on 
my  Commendation  of  my  Master.  But  I  will  say  very  much  in  a  Little.  Out 
of  the  School,  he  was  One,  Antiqua  Fide,  priscie  moribus ;  A  Christian  of  the 
Old  Fashion  :  An  OLD  NEW-ENGLISH  CHRISTIAN ;  And  I  may  tell  you, 
That  was  as  Venerable  a  Sight,  as  the  World,  since  the  Days  of  Primitive 
Christianity,  has  ever  look'd  upon. 

He  was  well  Studied  in  the  Body  of  Divinity;  An  Able  Defender  of  the 
Faith  and  Order  of  the  Gospel ;  Notably  Conversant  and  Acquainted  with  the 
Scriptural  Prophecies  ;  And,  by  Consequence,  A  Sober  Chiliast. 

He  Lived  as  a  Master,  the  Term,  which  has  been  for  above  three  thousand 
years,  assign'd  for  the  Life  of  a  Man ;  he  continued  unto  the  Ninety  Fourth  year 
of  his  Age,  an  unusual  Instance  of  Liveliness.  His  Intellectual  Force,  as  litt'e 
abated  as  his  Natural.  He  Exemplified  the  Fulfilment  of  that  word,  As  thy 
Days,  so  shall  thy  Strength  be;  in  the  Gloss  which  the  Jerusalem  Tar  gum 
has  put  upon  it;  As  thou  wast  in  the  Dayes  of  thy  Youth,  such  thou  shall  he 
in  thy  Old  Age.  Tlie  Reward  of  his  Fruitfulness !  For,  Fructus  Liberat 
Arborem  !  The  product  of  Temperance ;  Rather  than  what  my  Lord  Verulam 
assigns,  as  a  Reason  for  Vivacious  Scholars. 

DEATH  must  now  do  its  part.  He  Dy'd,  Longing  for  Death.  Our  old 
SIMEON  waited  for  it,  that  he  might  get  nearer  to  the  Consolation  of  Israel. 
He  Dyed  Leaning  like  Old  Jacob,  upon  a  Staff;  the  Sacrifice  and  the  Right 
eousness  of  a  Glorious  CHRIST,  he  let  us  know,  was  the  Golden  Staff,  which  he 
Lean'd  upon.  He  Dyed  mourning  for  the  Quick  Apostasie,  which  he  saw  break- 
ing in  uf>oii  us ;  veiy  easie  about  his  own  Eternal  Happiness,  but  full  of  Distress 
for  a  poor  People  here  under  the  Displeasure  of  Heaven,  for  Former  Iniquities, 
he  thought,  as  well  as  Later  Ones.  To  say  no  more :  He  Dyed,  A  CiVNDI- 
DATK  FOR  THE  FIRST  RESURRECTION.  And  Verily,  our  Land  is 
Weakened,  when  those  Fly  away,  at  whose  Flight  me  may  crj'  out.  My  Father, 
My  Father,  the  Chariots  o/New  England,  and  the  Horsemen  thereof." 


UZEKIEL  CHEEVER. 
GRATITUDINIS  ERGO. 


29 


An  E  S  S  A  Y  on  the  Memory  of  my  Venerable  MASTER ; 

ISjcfttrl  (Khefijer. 

Augusta  perstringere  Carmine  Lauda. 
Quas  nulla  Eloquij  vis  CeUbrare  qveat. 

TOU  that  are  Men,  &,  Thoughts  of  Man-  i  He  tauj^ht  us  first  Good  /Sense  to  understand 
hood  know.  And  put  the  Golden  Keyea  into  our  Hand, 

Be  Just  now  to  the  Man  that  made  you  so.       ;  We  but  for  him  had  been  for  Learning  Dumb, 
Martt/r'd  by  Scholars  the  stabb'd  Cassian    And  had  a  sort  of  Turkish  Mules  become. 

dies,  j  Were  Grammar  quite  Extinct,  yet  at  his  Brain 

And  falls  to  cursed  Lads  a  Sacrifice.  i  The  Candle  might  have  well  been  lit  again. 

Not  so  my  CHEEVER;  Not  by  5fcAo/ars  slain,  |  \(  Rhet'rick  had  been  strip!  of  all  her  Pride 
But  Prais'd,  and  Lov'd,  and  wish'd  to  Life    She  from  his  Wardrobe  might  have  been  Sup- 
again.  '  ply'd. 
A  mighty  jTriAe  of  Well-instructed  Youth          Do  but  Name  CHEEVER,  and  the  Echo 
Tell  what  they  owe  to  him,  and  Tell  with  straight 

Truth,  Upon  that  Name,  Good  Latin,  will  Repeat. 


AU  the  Eight  parts  of  Speech  be  taught  to 

them 
They  now  Employ  to  Trumpet  his  Esteem. 
They  fill  Fames  Trumpet,  and  they  spread  a 

Fame 
To  last  till  the  Last  Trumpet  drown  the  same. 
Magister  pleas'd  them  well,  because  'twas  he ; 
They  saw  that  Bonus  did  with  it  agree. 
While  they  said,  Amo,  they  the  Hint  improve 
Him  for  to  make  the  Object  of  their  Love. 
No  Concord  so  Inviolate  they  knew 
As  to  pay  Honours  to  their  Master  due. 
With  Interjections  they  break  off  at  last, 
But,  Ah,  is  all  they  use.  Wo,  and,  Alus .' 
We  Learnt  Pro-iodia,  but  with  that  Design 
Our  Masters  Name  should  in  our  Terses shine, 
Our  Weeping  Ovid  but  instructed  us 
To  write  upon  his  Death,  De  Tristibus. 
TuUy  we  read,  but  still  with  this  Intent, 
That  in  his  praise  we  might  be  Eloquent. 
Our  Stately  Virgil  made  us  but  Contrive 
As  our  .^nchises  to  keep  hivi  Alive. 
When  Phcenix  to  Achilles  was  assign'd 
A  Master,  then  we  thought  not  Homer  blind  : 
A  Phanix,  which  Oh  !  miglit  his  Ashes  shew  ! 
So  rare  a  Thing  we  thouglit  our  Master  too. 
And  if  we  made  a  Theme,  'twas  with  Regret 
We  might  not  on  his  Worth«show  all  our  Wit, 

Go  on,  ye  Grateful  Scholars,  to  proclame 
To  late  Prosterity  your  Masters  Name. 
Let  it  as  many  Languages  declare 
As  on  ioreZ/o-Table  do  appear. 

To  much  to  be  by  any  one  exprest: 

77/  tell  my  share,  and  you  shall  tell  the  rest. 
Ink  is  too  vile  a  Liquor ;  Liquid  Gold 
Should  fill  the  Pen,  by  which  such  things  are 

told. 
The  Book  should  Amyanthus-P&per  be 
All  writ  with  Gold,  from  all  corruption  free. 

A  Learned  Master  of  the  Languages 
Which  to  Rich  Stores  of  Learning  are  the 
Kei/es  ; 


A  Christian  Terence,  Master  of  the  File 
That  arms  the  Curious  to  Reform  their  Style. 
Now  Rome  and  Athens  from  their  Ashes  rise ; 
See  their  Platonick  Year  with  vast  surpri.se: 
And  in  our  School  a  Miracle  is  wrought ; 
For  the  Dead  Languages  to  Life  are  brought. 

His  Work  he  Lov'd :  Oh  !  had  we  done  the 
same ! 
Our  Play-dayes  still  to  him  ungrateful  came. 
And  yet  so  well  our  Work  adjusted  Lay, 
We  came  to  Work,  as  if  we  came  to  Play. 

Our  Lads  had  been,  but  for  hie  wondrous 
Cares, 

Boyes  of  my  Lady  Mores  unquiet  Pray'rs. 

Sure  were  it  not  for  such  informing  Schools, 

Our  Lot' ran  too  would  soon  be  fiU'd  with 
Omies. 

'Tis  CORLET's  pains,  &  CHEEVER's,  we 
must  own. 

That  thou.  New  England,  art  not  Scythia 
grown. 

The  Isles  of  Silly  had  o're-nm  this  Day 

The  Continent  of  our  America. 
Grammar  he  taught,  which  'twas  his  work  to 

do: 
But  he  would  Hagar  have  her  place  to  know. 

The  Bible  is  the  Sacred  Grammar,  where 

The  Rules  of  speaking  well,  contained  are. 
He  taught  us  Lilly,  and  he  Gospel  taught ; 
And  us  poor  Children  to  our  Saviour  brought- 
Master  of  Sentences,  he  gave  us  more 
Then  we  in  our  Sententim  had  before. 
We  Learn't  Good  Things  in  Tallies  Offices ; 
But  we  from  him  Learn't  Better  things  than 

these 
With  Cato's  he  to  us  the  Higher  gave 
Lessons  of  JESUS,  that  our  Souls  do  save. 
We  Constru'd  Oeid's  Metamorphosis, 
But  on  our  selves  charg'd,  not  a  Change  to 

miss, 
Toung  Austin  wept,  when  he  caw  Dido  dead, 
Tho'  not  a  Tear  for  a  Lost  Soul  he  had ; 


30 


EZEKIEL  CBEEVER. 


Our  Master  would  not  let  us  be  bo  vain, 
But  us  from  Virgil  d\d  to  David  train. 
TixtoTS  Epistles  would  not  Cloathe  our  Souls; 
Poula  too  we  heard;  we  went  to  School  at 

Pauls. 
Syrs,  Do  you  not  Remember  well  the  Times 
When  us  he  warn'd  against  our  Youthful 

Crimes : 
Wliat  Honey  dropt  from  our  old  Nestors 

mouth 
When  with  his  Counsels  he  Reform'd  our 

Youth : 
How  much  he  did  to  make  us  Wise  and  Good; 
And  with  what  Prayers,  his  work  he  did  con- 
clude. 
Concern'd,  that  when  from  him  we  Learning 

had, 
It  might  not  Armed  Wickedness  be  made ! 
The  Sun  shall  first  the  Zodiac  forsake. 
And  Stones  unto  the  Stars  their  Flight  shall 

make: 
First  shall  the  Summer  bring  large  drifts  of 

Snow, 
And  beauteous  Cherries  in  December  grow  ; 
E're  of  those  Charges  we  Forgetful  are 
Which  we,  O  man  of  God,  from  thee  did 

hear. 
Such  Tutors  to  the  Little  Ones  would  be 
Such  that  in  Flesh  we  should  their  Angels 

see  ; 
Ezekiel  should  not  be  the  Name  of  such  ; 
We'd  Agathangelus  not  think  too  much, 
Who  Serv'd  the  School,  the  Church  did  not 

forget ; 
But  Thought,  aud  Pray'd,  and  oflen  wept  for 

it. 
Mighty  in  Prayer :  How  did  he  wield  thee, 

Pray'r ! 
Thou  Reverst  Thunder :    CHRIST's-Sides- 

piercing  Spear? 
Soaring  we  saw  the  Bird  of  Paradise  ; 
So  Wing'd  by  Thee,  for  Flights  beyond  the 

Skies. 
How  oft  we  saw  him  tread  the  Milky  Way, 
Which  to  the  Glorious  Throne  of  Mercy  lay ! 
Come  from  the  Mount,  he  shone  witli  an- 
cient Grace, 
Awful  the  Splendor  of  his  Aged  Face. 
Ctoath'd  in  the  Good  Old  Way,  his  Garb  did 

wage 
A  War  with  the  Vain  Fashions  of  the  Age. 
Fearful  of  nothing  more  than  hateful  Sin; 
'Twas  that  from  which   he  laboured  all  to 

win, 
Zealous;  And  in  Truths  Cause  ne'r  known 

to  trim  ; 
No  Neuter  Gender  there  allow'd  by  him. 
Stars  but  a  Thousand  did  the  Ancients  know. 
On  later  Globes  they  Nineteen  hundred  grow; 
Now  such  a  CHEEVER  added  to  the  Sphere; 
Makes  an  Addition  to  the  Lustre  there. 
Mean  time  America  a  Wonder  saw  ; 
A  Youth  in  Age,  forbid  by  Natures  Law. 


You  that  in  t'other  Hemisphere  do  dwell, 
Do  of  Old  Age  your  dismal  Stories  tell. 
You  tell  of  Snotry  Beads  and  Rheumy  Eyes ! 
And  things  that  make  a  man  himself  despise. 
You  say,  a.  frozen  Liquor  chills  the  Veins, 
And  scarce  the  Shadow  of  a  Man  remains 
Winter  of  Life,  that  Sapless  Age  you  call, 
And  of  all  Maladies  the  Hospital: 
The  Second  Nonage  of  the  Soul ;  the  Brain 
Cover'd  with  Cloud  ;  the  Body  all  in  pain. 
To  weak  Old  Age,  you  say,  there  must  belong 
A  Trembling  Palsey  both  of  Limb  and  Tongue, 
Hayes  all  Decrepit ;  and  a  Bending  Back, 
Propt  by  a  Staff,  in  Hands  that  ever  shake. 

Nay,  Syrs,  our  CHEEVER  shall   confute 
you  all, 
On  whom  there  did  none  of  these  Mischefs  fall. 
He  Liv'd,  and  to  vast  Age  no  Illness  knew ; 
Till  Times  Scythe  waiting  for   him  Rusty 

grew. 
He  Liv'd  and  Wrought ;  His  Labours  were 

Immense  ; 
But  ne'r  Declin'd  to  Prater-perfect  Tense. 
A  Blooming  Youth  in  him  at  Ninety  Four 
We  saw ;  But,  Oh  !  when  such  a  sight  before 
At  Wondrous  Age  he  did  his  Youth  resume. 
As  when  the  Eagle  mew's  his  Aged  plume. 
With  Faculties  of  Reason  still  so  bright, 
And  at  Good  Services  so  Exquisite ; 
Sure    our  sound    Chiliast,    we    wondring 

thought. 
To  the  F^TSt  Resurrection  is  not  brought ! 
No,  He  for  that  was  waiting  at  the  Gate 
In  the  Pure  Things  that  fit  a  Candidate. 
He  in  Good  Actions  did  his  Life  Employ, 
And  to  make  others  Good,  he  made  his  Joy. 
Thus  well-appris'd  now  of  the  Life  to  Come, 
To  Line  here  was  to  him  a  Martyrdom. 
Our  brave  Macrobius  Long'd  to  see  the  Day 
WTiich  others  dread,  of  being  CaWd  away. 
So,  Ripe  with  Age,  he  does  invite  the  Hook, 
Which  watchful  does  for  its   large  Harvest 

look : 
Death  gently  cut  the  Stalk,  and  kindly  laid 
Him,  where  our  God  His  Granary  has  made, 

Who  at  New-Haven  first  began  to  Teach, 
Dying    Unshipwreck'd,   does    White-Haven 

reach. 
At  that  Fair  Haven  they  all  Storms  forget ; 
He  there  his  DAVENPORT  with  Love  does 
meet. 

The  Luminous  Robe,  the  Loss  whereof  with 
Shame 
Our  Parents  wept,  when  Naked  they  became; 
Those  Lovely  Spirits  wear  it,  and  therein 
Serve  God  with  Priestly  Glory,  free  from  Sin. 

But  in  his  Paradisian  Rest  above, 
To  Us  does  the  Blest  Shade  retain  his  Love. 
With  Rip'ned  Thoughts  Above  concern'd  for 

Us, 
We  can't  but  hear  him  dart  his  Wishes,  thus. 
'  TUTORS,  Be  Strict ;  But  yet  be  Gentle  too : 

'  Don't  by  fierce  Cruelties  fair  Hopes  undoe. 


EZEKIEL  CHEEVER.  31 


*  But,  Oh !  First  Tsach  them  their  Great 

God  to  fear ; 
'That  you  like  me,  with  Joy   may  meet 
them  here.' 

H'  has  said  ! 

Adieu,  a  little  while,  Dear  Saint,  Adieu ; 
Your  Scholar  won't  be  Long,  Sir,  after  you. 
Ill  the  mean  time,  with  Gratitude  I  must 
Engrave  an  EPITAPH  upon  your  Dust. 
'Tis  true,  Excetsive  Merit*  rarely  safe : 
Such  an  Excess  forfeits  an  Epitaph. 
Ilut  if  Base  men  the  Rules  of  Justice  break 
The  Stones  (at  least  upon  the  Tombs)  will 
speak. 


'  Dream  not,  that  they  who  are  to  Learning 

slow, 
'  Will  mend  by  Arguments  in  Ferio. 
'  Who  keeps  the  Golden  Fleece,  Oh,  let  him 

not 

*  A  Dragon  be,  tho'  he  Three  Tongues  have 

got. 
'  Why  can  you  not  to  Learning  find  the  way, 
'  But  thro'  the  Province  of  Severia  J 
»Twas  Moderaius,  who  taught  Origen  ; 
'  A  Youth  which  prov'd  one  of  the  best  of 

men. 
'The  Ladt  with  ITonour  first,  and  Reason 

Rule; 

•  Blotoes  are  but  for  the  Refractory  F\)ol. 

Et  Tumulum/acite,  et  Tumitlo  superaddite  carmen.— [Wrg.  in  Dephn.] 

EPlTAPmUM. 

EZEKIEL  CHBEVEBU8 : 

Ludimagister ; 
Primo  Neo-porlensis ; 
Deinde,  Ipsuicensis; 
Postea,  Carolotenensis 
Postremo,  Bostonensis : 

cujus 
Doctrinam  ac  Virtutem 
Nostri,  si  Sis  Nov-Anglus, 
Colis,  si  uon  Barbarus ; 
GRAMMATICUS, 
a  Quo,  non  pure  tantum,  sed  et  pie, 
Loqui ; 
RHET0RICD8, 
a  Quo  non  tantum  Ornate  dicere 

coram  Hominibus, 

Sed  et  Orationes  coram  Deo  fundere 

Efflcacissimas ; 

POETA, 

a  Quo  non  tantum  Carmina  pangere, 

Sedet 

Cffileetes  Hymnos,  Odasq  ;  Angelicas, 

canere, 

Didicerunt, 

Qui  discere  voluerunt ; 

LUCERNA, 
ad  Quam  accensa  sunt, 
Quis  queat  numerare, 
Quot  Ecclesiarum  Lumina  1 
ET 
Qui  secum  Corpus  Theologies  abstulit, 

Peritissimus  THEOLOGUS, 
Corpus  hie  suum  sibi  minus  Charum, 
deposuit. 
Vixit  Annos,  XCIV. 
Docuit,  Annos,  LXX. 
Obiit,  A.D.  M.  DCC.  VIII. 
Et  quod  Mori  potuit, 

HEIC 

Expectat  Exoptatq : 

Primam  Sanctorum  Resurrectionem 

ad 

Immortalitatem. 


^(PRR^^, 


32  EZEKIEL  £HEEVER. 

Mi;.  Cheever  married  his  first  wife  in  New  Haven,  (according  to 
the  Diary  of  Judge  Sewall),  in  the  autumn  of  1638.  In  the 
baptismal  record  of  the  first  church,  the  second  baptism  is  that  of 
"Samuel  Cheevers,  the  son  of  Ezekiel  Cheevers,"  "the  iTth  of  the 
9th  month  (November),  1639, — who  died  at  Marblehead  in  1*724. 
Mary,  his  daughter,  was  baptized  29th  of  November,  1640;  his  son, 
Ezekiel,  was  baptized  12th  of  June,  1642,  and  died  1643 ;  another 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  was  baptized  the  6th  of  April,  1645.  According 
to  the  same  baptismal  record,  "  Sarah  Cheever,"  probably  another 
daughter  of  his,  was  baptized  21st,  September,  1646;  and,  "Hannah 
Cheever"  on  the  25th  of  June,  1648.  His  first  wife  died  at  New 
Haven,  in  1649,  and  her  death  may  have  been  one  of  the  causes  of 
his  removal  to  another  field  of  labor. 

He  married,!  ^^^  ^^^  second  wife,  on  18  Nov.,  1652,  Miss  Ellen  Lo- 
throp,  of  Salem,  a  sister  of  Captain  Thomas  Lothrop,  who  was  massa- 
cred at  Bloody  Brook,  at  the  head  of  the  "  flower  of  Essex."  Of  this 
marriage  were  born  Abigail,  on  the  20th  of  October,  1653  ;  Ezekiel,  on 
the  1st  of  July,  1655  ;  Nathaniel,  on  the  23d  of  June,  1657,  (died  in 
July  following) ;  Thomas,  on  the  23d  of  August,  1658;  and,  Susanna, 
whose  baptism  is  recorded  in  1665.  Of  the  children  above-named, 
Thomas,  Samuel,  Mary,  Elizabeth,  Ezekiel,  and  Susanna  are  named  in 
his  last  will,*  and  were  living  in  February,  1705-6.  His  second  wife 
died  on  the  10th  of  Sept.,  1706. 

*We  are  indebted  for  a  copy  of  Ezekiel  Cheever's  Will  to  Mr.  S.  Bradford  Morse,  Jr.,  of 
East  Boston,  wlio  is  married  to  a  descendant  of  the  venerable  school-master. 

THE  LAST  WILL  AND  TESTAMENT  OF  EZEKIEL  CHEEVER. 

Sn  ^^ornine  Domint  amen.  .„;,^f;^'(1o^l:rro"suyo'.^rnTewE^.°?: 

land.  Schoolmaster,  being  through  great  mercy  in  good  health  and  understanding  wonderfuil 
in  my  age,  Do  make  and  ordain  this  my  Last  will  and  Testamt :  as  followeth. 

First  I  give  up  my  Soul  to  God  my  father  in  Jesus  Christ,  my  Body  to  the  Earth  to  be  De- 
cently buried  in  a  Decent  manner  according  to  my  Desire  in  hope  of  a  Blessed  part  in  ye  first 
Resurrection  <t  Glorious  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth  a  thousand  years. 

As  for  my  outward  Estate  I  thus  Dispose  of  it.  First  I  Give  to  my  Dear  wife  all  my  house- 
hold Goods  and  of  my  plate  ye  two  Ear'd  Cupp,  my  Leat  Tankard,  a  porringer,  a  Spoon. 

It:  I  give  my  Son  Thomas  all  my  Books  Saving  what  Ezekiel  may  need  &  what  Godly 
Books  my  wife  may  Desire. 

Item.    I  give  to  my  Grand  Child  Ezekiel  Russell  twenty  pounds. 

Item.  I  Devide  all  the  Rest  of  my  Estate  into  three  parts  one  third  I  give  to  my  Dear  wife 
Ellen  Cheever  ye  other  two  thirds  to  my  other  Children  Samuel,  Mary,  Eliza'h,  Ezekiel, 
Thomas,  Susanna  equally  part  part  alike  the  Legacyes,  Debts  &  funeral  Expences  Deducted 
&  Dis(*iiarged. 

Maries  portion  I  give  to  her  Children  as  she  shall  Dispose.  The  Land  Elizath  purchased 
with  my  money  I  give  to  her  6c.  to  her  Children  forever.  If  my  wife  Dyes  before  me  all  given 
her  shall  be  given  to  my  Six  Children  equally.  If  any  of  my  Childn  Dye  their  portion  I  give 
to  their  ('hildren  equaly. 

Item.  I  give  to  the  poor  five  pounds  as  part  of  my  funeral  Chargs:  Item.  I  make  &  ap- 
point my  Dear  wife  Ellen  Cheever  &  my  two  Children  Thomas  &  Susanna  Joint  Executors 
of  this  my  Last  will.  In  witness:  whereof  I  have  hereunto  Set  my  hand  &  Seal  this  Six- 
teenth Day  of  February  1705-6  : 

Ezekiel  Chever  <t  Seal.  Signed  Sealed  Declared  in  presence  of  Benja  Dyer  Henry  Bridge- 
ham,  Henry  Bridghame. 

Examined  Per :  P.  Dudley  Regr. 

From  Probate  Records,  Liber  No.  16,  pp.  452-453. 

t  On  the  authority  of  James  Savage,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 
The  names  of  the  children  by  the  second  wife  are  taken  from  a  manuscript  memorandum, 
belonging  to  Rev.  Ezekiel  Cheever  Williams,  of 


Thk  Amebican  Journal  of  Edccatiok,  commenced  by  the  undersigned  in 
May,  1856,  and  united,  afler  much  of  tlie  copy  of  Number  One  was  in  type,  with  the 
Cbtttffe  Jterieto  and  Educational  Journal,  projected  by  the  Rev.  Absalom  Peteni,  D.  D.> 
■will  hereafter  be  published  by  the  undersigned  on  his  original  plan;  the  agreement 
for  the  joint  editorship  and  proprietorship  of  tlte  Journal  and  Review^  having  been 
dissolved  by  mutual  consent  and  for  mutual  convenience. 

The  American  Jtmmal  of  luiucatwn  for  1866  will  consist  of  Seven  Numbers,  of 
which  numbers  I.  and  II.  are  already  printed  under  the  title  of  the  American  Journal 
of  Education  and  OAlege  Rttiew.  A  numl^r  will  be  issued  on  the  1st  of  March,  May 
July,  September,  and  November  of  1856. 

The  five  numbers  to  be  issued  in  1856  will  contain,  on  an  average,  e*ch  160  pages 
and  the  whole  will  constitute  a  volume  of  at  least  1,000  pages,  or  two  volumes,  each, 
of  at  least  600  pages. 

Each  number  will  be  embellished  with  an  engraved  portrait  of  an  eminent  teacher 
or  benefactor  of  education,  or  with  one  or  more  wood-cuts  of  buildings,  apparatus,  or 
other  preparations  for  educational  purposes. 

The  subscription  price  is  Three  Dollars  for  the  current  year,  (1866),  commencing 
with  Number  One,  and  payable'in  advance. 

It  is  the  intention  of  the  editor  to  labor  faithfully  to  make  the  American  Journal  of 
Education  the  rep<isitory  of  the  past  history  and  present  condition  of  educational  sys 
tems,  institutions,  and  {agencies  in  every  civilized  country,  and  the  medium  of  the 
current  intelligence  and  discussion  on  these  great  subjects  between  the  friends  of 
improvement  in  every  part  of  our  country,  whether  interested  directly  in  public  or 
private  schools,  or  in  the  higher  or  elementary  branches  of  knowledge. 

All  communications  relating  to  the  American  Jotimal  of  Education  may  be 
addressed, 

HENRY   BARNARD, 

February -iith,  \>ir)6.  Hartford,  Conn. 

CONTENTS.    NO.    1. 

Paob. 

Editorial  Introduction 1 

Ths  American  Association  roR  the  Advancement  of  Kuucatiok. 

Joamal  of  Proceedings  of  Fourth  Annual  .Meeting,  held  in  Wssbington,  on  the  27th, 
i8th,  29th  and  30th  of  December,  18.04.     By  R.  L.  Cooke,  Secretary 9 

I.  PrfiLOSOPHT  OF  Edocation.     Ity  Joseph  Henry.  LL.  D 17 

Remarks  on  the  same,  by  Bishop  Potter.  Prof,  llachc.  Dr.  Proudfit,  and  others 82 

II.  The  Anglo-Saxon  Element  in  the  Kn<;i.i8H   Language.    By  John  S.  Hart,  LL.  D..    33 
Keniarks  on  the  saiue,  bv  Bii^hop  Pottt-r,  I'mf.  Diniitry,  Dr.  Proudtit,  Rev.  M.  Uamill, 

Prof.  Bache,  Dr.  Stanton,  Prof  h.im  ^     .n  I  ,,th,rs 60 

III.  Classical  Education.    By  Davi  v  Jersey 67 

Ileniarks  on  the  same  by  A.  Gnv  .  Z.  iUchards,  Dr.  Proudflt 83 

IV.  Description  OF  THE  PuBUCllicu  .-^ _--   .  mi  ki  i'ni\.  Hy  John  S.  Hart,  LL.  D.    96 

Remarks  on  the  same  by  Prof.  Baclie,  Dr.  in  '   rind  others 100 

T.  Practical  Science.     An  Aoroiint  of  a  Vi.-<it  t<  ist  Survey 108 

vi.  Discipline,  Moral  and  Mental.    By  Z.   );  107 

VU.  Kdlcation  AMONG  THE  Cherokee  Indians.    I  120 

VIII.  School  Government.    By  Rev.  Samuel  Hi.i  Now  Jersey 123 

IX.  Plaji  OP  Central  AoESCT  FOR  THE  Anvvvrt,-  .  the  iMrEn  STtxps. 

By  Henry  Barnard,  Hartford,  Ct.  . .  .  .   134 

NO.    2. 

Por»-.if  f.f  M.l.ntt  Ijiwrencc — from  a  Steel  Engraving. 

T    r  P.ODUCTION 137 

jT  TriTiON.     By  Prof.  F.  D.  Huntington,  of  Harvard  College 141 

T,,  ,Ti.-  TfMiE.vciva  ..F  ?(iKM  K.     Hv  Pn.f.  D.  Olmsted,  of  Yale  College 164 

IV.  IMPH  '  irof.^F^A^P.  Barnard .174 

V.  Popii 

VI.  BENKi 


.of  Toronto 186 

202 


VII    Abbott  Lawrk.nck •  206 

Vlli    The  Lawrence  Scientific  School,  with  an  IllustTation 216 

IX    American  Colleges;  History  of  Illinois  College 236 

X.RicHMOND  Female  iNSTiTOTi,  with  lUmtratioos 281 

Xi-  BDOCATIOSAL  INTELUOBKCE 234 


BARNARD'S 

^^mcncaii  lounuil  of  (ftiiuatiou. 


The  Amkrican  Joursal  of  Educatidw  for  1866,  edited  and  published  by  Heni; 
IUrsakd,  IlaHford,  Conn.,  will  consist  ol  seven  Xnnibers,  of  which  Numbers  I.  cS: 

II.  are  ulrcudy  issued  under  the  title  of  the  Americau  Journal  of  Education  and  Col- 
lege Review.  A  number  will  be  issued  on  the  1st  of  March,  May,  .lulj',  September, 
and  November.  Each  of  the  five  numbers  to  be  issued  in  1856,  will  contain  on  an 
average  160  pages,  and  the  whole  wifl  constitute  two  volumes,  of  at  least  500  pages 
each.  The  two  volumes  will  be  embellished  by  portraits  on  steel  of  five  eminent 
teachers  or  benefactors  of  education,  and  mth  thirty  wood  cuts,  illustrative  of  recent 
improvements  in  the  ventilation,  warming,  acoustics,  and  furniture  of  buildings  de- 
signed for  lectujres,  class-rooms,  and  other  edacational  purposes.    Terms,  S3.f)0. 

CON  TENTS.    NO.  3,  I^'^OR    MARCH.  ^^^^ 

Portrait  of  George  Peabody,  Founder  of  Peabody  Institute,  Danvers,  Mass. 

I.    Educatios,— A  DEBT  DUE  FROM   Presknt  TO  FUTURE  Geseratioss  ;  illustrated  in  the 

endowm«nt  of  the  Peabody  Institute 237 

TI.    Educatiox  amonq  the  UebiCews.    By  Rev.Morris  Raphall,  Ph.  D.,  New  York 243 

III.  Progress  of  Educational  Development  is  Europe.    By  Henry  P.  Tappan,' D.  P<) - ..' 

LL.  D.,  Chancellor  of  University  of  Michigan 247 

IV.  Improvements  Practicable  in  American  GoLi.BaES.    By  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  LL.  D  , 

Prof,  of  Mathematics  and  Astronomy  in  the  University  of  Mississippi 269 

V.  Method   of  Teaching   Latin   and  Greek.    By  Tayler  Lewis,  LL.  D.,  Prof,  of  Greek 

in  Uniou  College,  N.  Y 281 

VI.  Educational  Biography 295 

VII.  Biography  of  Ezekiel  Cheever,  the  Patriarch  of  New  England  School  Masters— 
with  Notes  on  the  early  Free  Schools  and  Text  Books  of  New  England 297 

viil.    Scientific  Schools  in  Europe,  considered  in  reference  to  their  prevalence,  utility, 

scope,  and  adaptation  to  America,  by  D.iniel  C.  Oilman,  A.  M 315 

I.X.    Pla5  op  an  .Vjbicdltural  School.    By  John  A.  Porter,  M.  D.,  Prof,  of  A'gricul- 

tuRxl  Chemistry  iu  the  Yale  Scientific  School 32f> 

X.  Moral  Education.    By  Kev.  Charles  Brocks,  of  Medford,  Mads 

XI.  Crimes  op  CnaDUBN  and  their  Prevention 

XU.    System  of  Public  Schools  in  St.  LouI^,  Missouri;   with  Plans  and  I>i,»<  rijiHon  of 

the  PubUc  lligh  School 348 

XIII.  Letters  to  a  Yocno  Teacher.  By  Gideon  F.  Thayer,  late  Principal  of  Chauney 
Hall  School,  Boston 357 

XIV.  Department  of  Philosophy  A^•D  the  /  rts  in  Yale  College 359 

XV.  Magnitude  of  the  Educational  Intkr' st  of  the  United  States;  asshowaby  Sta- 
tistical Tables  and  Summaries  of  the  Population,  Educational  Funds,  Colleges,  Acad- 
emies, Common  Schools,  Normal  School  .  Reform  Schools,  &c.,  of  the  several  States.  .361 

XVT.    Educ.vtional  Movements  and  Statist  'J8 886 

ItDSSiA.    1.  Universities.    2.  Special  Schoils  for  S«ientiflc  Education.    3.  MiUtary  Schools. 
Belgium.    Industrial  Education. 

Great  Britain.    1.  Appropriations  by  I  .irliament  for  Education,  Science  and  Art  in 

1855-66.    2.  Distribution  of  Parliament  .ry  Grant  by  Department  of  Science  and  Art 

in  Board  of  Trade.    3.  Proposed  Unireisity  for  Legal  Education.    4.  Working  Men's 

College  in  London.    5.  Midland  Litcri.ry  and  Scientific  Institute  at  Birmingham — 

with  Remarks  by  Ilis  Koyal  Highness  I  rince  Albert,  on  laying  the  Corner  Stone. 

Distribution  of  Parliamentary  Grant  b\  Board  of  ComniLssioners  of  National  Educa 

tion  in  Ireland.    7.  Inquiry  into  Educ.itional Endowments  in  Ireland.    8.  Salaries  < 

Professors  in  Universities  of  Scotland     9.  Dick's   Bequest  in  behalf  of  Parochial 

School-Masters.    10.  Lord  Elgin's  Spee.  li  at  Glasgow,  holding  up  the  Canada  System 

of  Public  Schools  to  Scotland  for  imitat  ion. 

Kn4NrK.    1.  Opinions  entertained  of  Aiiorican  Education.    2.  Boarding  -School  for 

at  Paris. 

[>.    1.  Universities, — Leyden.  Ulr  ubt,  and  Groningen.    2.  Public  Schools. 

v.EioivNY.    Universities  of  r--    ■■    "  — ?irl  Austria.  _ 

American  States.    1.  Col  1  in  1855-6.    2.  Notices  of  deferred  Arti- 

cles.    3.  Plans  of  new  I'll  .-  .sinNewYoak. 

XVII.  Educational  Journals..    1.  Gennan.    2.  French.    3.  I  11" 

XVIII.  Books  and  Pampuletb  iiELATiN(i  ti  Schools  and  Em  IT 


^ 


